A Preity good Dubai birthday

Bollywood actress Preity Zinta was in Dubai over the weekend to celebrate her birthday. The actress, who turned 35 yesterday, tweeted about her whirlwind trip to the emirate on her Twitter account, realpreityzinta.

"Good afternoon guys! Chilling in Dubai for my Birthday weekend! This is going to be the best year of my life," the award-winning actress said on Saturday.

She added: "I have always wondered why Ash [Aishwarya Rai Bachchan] and me grow older every year while all d other actresses either stay d same age or get younger? Any guesses?"

Without revealing the details of her birthday party, Zinta, who recently received the Stardust Best Actress award for her role in Videsh, which was screened at Dubai International Film Festival in 2008, also tested her culinary talents and set out to explore the ongoing Dubai Shopping Festival sales.

Saturday's tweet saw her attempting to cook Indian food to satiate her "Indian tummy", which may have disappointed Dubai chefs as Zinta preferred a home-cooked meal to some of the city's gastronomic delights.

Yesterday, with shopping on the agenda, she tweeted: "Am in Dubai 4 a bit of furniture shopping 4 my house in Mumbai. Thought I'd make use of the sales here."

Unfortunately for her, the expedition was a bust as six minutes after the above-mentioned tweet, Zinta said: "Unfortunately, no good shopping… East or West, shopping in India is the best."

Maybe she just wasn't shopping in the right places.

Zinta has never shied away from speaking her mind and also tweeted to the defence of co-star and friend Shah Rukh Khan, who has found himself in a political tussle with the rightwing Shiv Sena political party over the exclusion of Pakistani cricket players in the upcoming Indian Premier League tournament.

A statement from Khan about his disappointment over a lack of bids for Pakistani cricketers at the IPL auction kicked off rioting across Mumbai, with the Shiv Sena accusing him of siding with terrorists, being disrespectful to those who died in the city's 26/11 attacks, and ordering posters of his film My Name is Khan torn down.

Zinta, who is the co-owner of Kings XI Punjab IPL team, took up for Khan and tweeted: "Guyz just for the record, Shah Rukh is the most secular and the most fair guy I know! It's unfair to judge his movie based on his opinions!"

For the record, Zinta has also shied away from including any Pakistani players in her IPL 2010 team.

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