The Indians Abroad

Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan to appear on Oprah Show!

Aishwairya Rai in 'Devdas'

The most influential woman in the world, Oprah Winfrey, is back with 2009 season of her world famous and the highest rated talk show. The downtown Chicago area – the Magnificent Mile- was closed to traffic last week as she kicked off the 24th season of Oprah Winfrey Show.

When it comes to the influence of this billionaire, Oprah is a force beyond comprehension. She has single-handedly popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre. Oprah has a very loyal world wide fan base, especially among women. A book lands on the ‘best seller list’ just by her mentioning of it on the show; the cattle ranchers in Texas get nervous if she promotes vegetarian food or says something against beef…..When Oprah talks, people listen!

And look, who is coming back to the Oprah show again- Aishwarya Rai! The popular Indian actress and former Miss World is no stranger to the show; and this time she brings her husband, Abhishek Bachchan, with her.

Aishwarya Rai is supposedly in Chicago with her beau preparing and shooting for the show. It is ‘rumored’ that the couple has been in USA for more than a week. Obviously, they did not get stopped by the immigration, otherwise we would have heard of it.

Now, what might the couple do on the Oprah show? Well, don’t expect an impromptu duet or a Bollywood style dance number; Oprah is more into discussions about social and cultural issues. Last time Aishwarya appeared on her show, she talked about Indian sareeand family values. With some of the best produces and directors creating the show, Oprah will certainly have something tasteful for them, but not too spicy .

With the Slumdog Millionaire dust still not settled overseas, it is a good opportunity for the celebrity couple to create additional awareness about India and Bollywood. It would be interesting to see if they announce any overseas projects or possible collaboration with Hollywood in the future. There have been all kinds of speculations about Bollywood meeting Hollywood…one day.

Updated: The show was telecast on Sep. 28 and the interview details of the Bollywood Love Story are in this follow-up post.

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