The director of Lagaan, Ashutosh Gowariker, was invited to join the film jury for the Academy Awards. He’s not on the foreign film jury, which is either an odd omission or a compliment. Gowariker is now advising the director of Shwaas, India’s current Oscars entry: it’s all about awareness, baby.

I haven’t yet seen Lagaan. The combination of cricket and Bollywood is an enumeration of boredom. You start with baseball, the sport of paunch and waiting. Slow it down further and you end up with cricket. Now play the game over multiple days and film it as a bladder-busting, four-hour Bollywood movie. It all makes Gujarati wedding rites or a flight to Moscow seem like a blessed relief.

Gowariker’s latest movie, Swades, releases Dec. 17. It’s about a desi NASA astronaut but does not star our in-house rocket scientist. Abhi wants you to know that…

Yes. I am VERY bitter.

Personally, I can’t believe Sonali filmed Kal Ho Na Ho in my daily haunts and ‘forgot’ to call me. What’s up with that?