Some time back Salman Khan appeared in an interview along with Sooraj Barjatya and waxed eloquent about the director’s style of working; about how calm and collected he was on the sets. And then he compared him with Sanjay Leela Bhansali and said how Bhansali would shout so much at people in the sets; to the point that Salman had to tell him to cool down.
All this might have sounded very well to Barjatya but Bhansali has since been going around with his reputation a little bit in tatters. Not that Salman is such a saint either but he is a superstar who can get away with his temperamental predilections. Even Bhansali has to keep acknowledging his debt to Salman even when the latter keeps making jibes at him in public. They had a great partnership that led to two good movies Khamoshi and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam but the falling out happened in Bhansali’s next project after that.
When he set out to remake the epic Devdas, it was Shah Rukh Khan that he cast and not Salman. Since then the two have not worked together. They were going to Bhansali’s dream project Bajirao Mastani but then again the plans got shelved. What Bhansali doesn’t do is reply to Salman in the same tone. He was recently asked about Salman’s comments in an interview and gave the rather cryptic reply that he considered Salman a friend, didn’t know whether Salman felt the same but this comment showed that he still cared.
There was also another interesting controversy Bhansali was involved in. It was said that he signed on Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone for Bajirao Mastani thus making them unavailable for Karan Johar who wanted to cast them in his mega project Shuddhi. Bhansali says that he had already sounded out the two much before Karan, when he was making Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ram-Leela.
The awkward committee
They have spent a lifetime avoiding each other but then politics can make for strange companions. Jaya Bachchan and Rekha must not have talked to each other for decades, thanks to Amitabh’s alleged relationship with the latter.
But now it will hard for them to ignore each other and it has to do with Rekha following Jaya into Parliament. Both are in the Rajya Sabha. Jaya came first many years ago and Rekha too joined two years ago. Both have now been nominated to be part of a Parliamentary Committee, which will deliberate on Information Technology.
Since such committees discuss policies and there would be need for members to exchange ideas with each other it is intriguing how Jaya and Rekha will deal with it. It is hard to imagine them sitting in the same table together. But while Jaya has been attending Parliament regularly, Rekha has made news as someone who has rarely been seen there after her nomination. So, quite possibly, there wont be a problem because she just won’t be present.
Dates in question
Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan have a professional one-upmanship contest that goes back a long way. While the third Khan, Aamir, stays above this fray by being picky and avant-garde, the other two, firmly in the masala entertainer category, are battling for the same mindspace with the audience. While Salman is not cutthroat when it comes to his movies Shah Rukh, thanks to his extreme drive and energy, has a reputation for going all out to make his movies a success.
And when a curious rumour began to do the rounds recently about the dates of their 2015 movie releases, people perked up to wonder whether Shah Rukh was responsible. They both have some traditional dates slotted for their releases; Salman always goes for Eid and Shah Rukh on Diwali. The rumour was that Shah Rukh might be encroaching on Salman’s date. Yashraj Productions is making Fan with Shah Rukh and Bajrangi Bhaijaan with Salman. The former was going to be released on the August 15 Independence Day weekend while the latter would be the usual Salman’s Eid date.
The rumour was that Yashraj had decided to interchange the dates making Shah Rukh take over the Eid release. To do this, they had approached Bajrangi Bhaijaan’s director Kabir Khan who reportedly refused to oblige. Incidentally, Shah Rukh got a taste of the Eid date with Chennai Express last year and the movie turned out to be one of his biggest blockbusters.
But that was because no Salman movie released then. When this present whispers started, the assumption people began making was that Shah Rukh again wanted to encroach on the date. The rumour got enough momentum for Kabir Khan to take to Twitter to deny it. He tweeted, ‘…story about #Bajrangi Bhaijaan really makes me wonder what these journalists are smoking these days. Not an iota of truth in it...’
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Trouble with faith
The problem with Ramgopal Varma is that he projects himself as an unrepentant nihilist who has no qualms about outraging people but rarely shows the courage to back up his statements when an actual test of character comes along. Recently when the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi started, he was again at it and made a couple of derogatory tweets about the deity on Twitter.
It immediately led to angry comments and there was even a case filed against him. Perhaps understanding the possibility of the situation getting out of hand, he hurriedly put up an apology, which said, ‘All tweets I put on Ganesha were in my usual manner but unintended by me to hurt anyone’s sentiments ... but if they did I sincerely apologise’.
He had also put another tweet earlier which went, ‘I think my films are flopping only becos of my attitude towards Gods. ... I wish I can become a devotee’. And the gods did seem unhappy with him because another trouble came calling when a creditor made a police complaint that Varma had not repaid Rs 5 crore that he had taken during the making of Satya 2.