IF YOU TASTE SUCCESS IN TOLLYWOOD, WILL TEMPTRESSES BE FAR BEHIND?

Success is really relative. Because the more successful you are, the more relatives you have! Anyone who is someone rushes in to bask in the glory of your 'relative' success. And if it is Film Nagar, there are the baaja bhajantrees, called politely in English as bootlickers, who would do anything to hang around with you. Of course, it is not for nothing that they are hankering for your attention. They wait for their pound of flesh when the time is ripe.

You may manage to keep them at bay, but how would one tackle with the biggest relatives of them all -- the temptresses, who will stop at nothing to lure the successful ones with their Page 3 guile and their carefully cultivated oomph and charm? There are only two options: You either run away from them or fall prey to their machinations. And the latter is the fate of many successful filmmakers in the Telugu film industry.

It is learnt that a family of three brothers in Film Nagar, which has successfully carved a niche for itself in Tollywood as producers, is unfortunately caught in the wile company of three such temptresses. Of the three brothers, the first one is reportedly going around with a social butterfly, the Page 3 type. An ex-NRI managed to hook on to the second. And the last, we hear, is revelling in the cosy company of a popular Telugu actor's daughter.

Like every fling, their affairs too started off as one of those passing fancies, but today, it looks like that they are steeped in the "comfort zone" of these not-so-lovely ladies to figure out the extent of damage they have done to their family relationships. We hear that at least one of the brother's marriages is on the rocks. Will the others follow suit? Going by the way, these women have been weilding sway over these guys, looks like it may not be far off.

HE WENT, HE SAW AND CAME BACK IN EXACTLY 15 MINUTES: DID JUNIOR NTR GET THE ROYAL SNUB AT LOKESH-BRAHMANI'S ENGAGEMENT?

The more he tries to get closer to the NTR family, the farther they are keeping away from him. Junior NTR, who has been desperately hankering for the love and affection of the members of the NTR family, has not been lucky till now. There have been reports of how Balakrishna had insulted him when he tried to address him as 'babai' and seek his blessings a couple of years back. Not just Balakrishna, the whole of NTR family could not digest the fame and popularity of junior NTR. Why they didn't even like the idea of the junior using NTR's name. They consider him to be a pariah, and wouldn't even touch him with a barge pole. And on Sunday, when Balakrishna was soaking in the attention of the film industry's biggies on the occasion of the engagement ceremony of Lokesh and Brahmani held at his house in Jubilee Hills, NTR too went to greet the young couple. We don't know whether he was called by the Balakrishna family, or whether he was invited by his father Harikrishna, but the enthusiastic young man went with stars in his eyes, literally, to greet the young couple. Exactly in 15 minutes, however, he walked out with a red face. The answer was obvious. He got a cold reception. Or worse still, there must have been snide remarks, the kind we see in films, about how he could have come for the engagement ceremony, and who had called him. Don't worry NTR, your success speaks for yourself, you don't need to curry favour with anyone. The man whose love and affection you deserve, the late N T Rama Rao, is up in the sky and watching their every move. And, don't forget to remember that his benign grace is always showering on you. So, as Dale Carnegie says, stop worrying and start living a life you deserve to.