Besotted admirers have found another way to express their adulation: Celebrity fan sites!

Shenaz Walji: Entrepreneur, Toronto, Canada.
Hari Kumar: IT professional, Kochi, India.
Asim Iqbal: Teacher, Karachi, Pakistan.
Dheeraj Chawla: Network engineer, Kuwait.

What do these people have in common? They belong to an online tribe whose love for its screen idols has been translated into dedicated Web sites.

Shenaz runs sites on Hrithik Roshan and Vivek Oberoi. Asim Iqbal maintains an online home for Salman Khan. Dheeraj Chawla expresses his adulation for Amisha Patel and Hari Kumar maintains a site dedicated to South Indian hero Mohanlal.

There are many other fan sites. Often the stars are not aware of their existence. But that does not deter the passionate fans.

Some of them have met their screen idols. In 1996, Shenaz Walji's dream came true when she met her 'darling' Anil Kapoor at his Mumbai residence. Her own excitement and request from her friends to share the experience inspired her to come up with a site dedicated to the star. That was the beginning.

She shares: "In 2000, I was struck by a tornado called Hrithik Roshan. Although Anil Kapoor had been my favourite since Woh Saat Din, I could not ignore this talented boy whose versatility reminded me so much of Kapoor. I had to give him an online presence and launched the site with a good friend of mine, Shazia Bashir."

Shenaz says that though there was a lot of media reports on Abhishek Bachchan, there was very little about Hrithik Roshan. The site's name was inspired by the movie Charlie's Angels. When a third member, Yvonne Pais, joined in, they became the 'Angels trio'.

Asim Iqbal was hooked by Salman Khan's charm ever since he watched Maine Pyar Kiya. "I dream about meeting Salman one day," says Iqbal, adding that he doesn't have enough money to travel from Karachi to India. "But may Allah let me meet him some day. I think Salman knows about this site, since he is Internet savvy.  I consider him as my real brother as I don't have any." 

An unsuccessful online search for Mohanlal inspired Hari Kumar to launch his site. "I started the site in 2000. I spent a lot of time collecting details and resources and then used my Web designing skills to launch it."

Shenaz met Hrithik Roshan and Suzanne Khan in 2002 during the 'Heartthrobs' concert in Toronto. "Hrithik and his company Filmkraft knew about the site. Recently we got an email directly from Rakesh Roshan and now the company is in constant touch with us."

She hasn't had any direct interaction with Vivek Oberoi yet, but gets first-hand information. "We have a common friend through whom I get all the authorisation for content published on Vivek's Angels. He hasn't really kept us waiting for anything. Vivek has been surprisingly very cooperative and that makes life quite easy. His commitment to his work and fans has left me speechless!"

Dheeraj Chawla makes use of his spare time at work to maintain the Amisha site: "I work on the night shift and I have nothing to do after 2 am. So I spend my time on this effort." 

Shenaz spends six hours on the Hrithik site and two on Vivek's Angels. "My day starts at 4.00 am and ends at 11.00 pm." Her schedule includes writing articles, answering selected emails, organising content and images, getting approvals from appropriate channels, e-networking with the right people and building relationships with team members.

She explains why she spends less time on Vivek's site: "Vivek is a big star but not a superstar like Hrithik. His fan following through the site is considerably less. And the second reason is that Vivek is very accessible."

They also have some funny experiences. Iqbal talks about a girl who mailed him posing as Salman's sister Alvira. "On another occasion I received an email from a fake Salman Khan. In that bragging mail, the guy was trying to prove Salman's arrogance and media hostility. But when I asked some personal questions, he confessed that he was a fake."

A guy wrote Shenaz saying he was a reporter and had arranged a radio show with Hrithik. Then in the second paragraph he wrote: 'Could you please give me Hrithik's phone number or email address?'

"Arrey bhai, Hrithik has agreed to do the show means you are in touch with him. Why ask me for his contact info?" Shenaz asks. "The language he used was so funny, it was clearly written by a fan."

Shenaz relates an interesting argument with director Arjun Sablok on Na Tum Jaano Na Hum's last scene. "We had a conversation on why he didn't add a kiss when, in my opinion, that scene demanded a passionate ending rather than just a 'huggy' ending."

Earlier, Iqbal used to update his Salman site on a daily basis. But now, with fewer Salman releases, he manually updates the site once a week while the news center section is updated automatically.

Shenaz heads a seven-member team while Iqbal single-handedly maintains his site . "This is purely my work," he says passionately. "I don't want others to share it just as I don't want to share my love for Salman Khan."

Hari Kumar receives feedback from all over the world. "More response comes from NRIs who want contact details of Mohanlal. Some of them want CDs and cassettes of the his films." 

"Most fans are very fair and allow us to print unbiased views on the star," informs Shenaz. But, according to her, a handful of them insist on printing nothing but the good.

"Unfortunately, printing only good news doesn't paint the whole picture. So we try to print everything that is available out there -- good, bad and the in-between." Shenaz received a lot of hate mail when there were rumours about an affair between Hrithik and Kareena Kapoor, which she published. "Gossip is a part of entertainment and we will publish it all as long as we don't make up anything ourselves and the source is known," she reasons.

Shenaz shares the expenditure of running the site with Hrithik fans and a few other supporters. Iqbal says he doesn't really spend so much since he hosts on a free server. "But very soon I will move to a premium server and I am now searching for a sponsor."

Hari Kumar informs that they are in the final stages of converting the site to a dynamic one. A Mohanlal fans community is also in the offing. Dheeraj Chawla's next target is Priyanka Chopra. "She inspired me by doing The Hero.  My future plans depend upon the popularity of the star.  If there is no demand, then there will be no fan site."

Says Shenaz: "Arrey, online hai, popular hai, bohat hai! Don't you agree? It is a huge task to update the site daily. If I can meet that objective, it is enough." Shenaz considers providing exclusive information and surviving the tough dotcom days as their noteworthy achievements.