Pappu can fight saala

Pappu can fight saala

Bollywood scribes are already terming the recent spat between superstars Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan as the ‘story of the year.’ For the uninitiated (though with 24X7 electronic media carpet-bombing, they’re a rarity), it all happened at Katrina Kaif’s birthday bash in a suburban Mumbai hotspot.

Apparently banter between the two Khans turned ugly when professional comparisons regarding their television shows cropped up — the numbers of SRK’s Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain have not met expectations, while Salman’s 10 Ka Dum has got a favourable response. Tabloids tell us that the heated discussion took a turn for the worse when SRK allegedly made an inappropriate comment about Salman’s ex-girlfriend, Aishwarya Rai.

But it’s not just the two warring Khans — the normally reticent Amitabh Bachchan recently blogged about “being privy personally to a design by certain sections of the media and the fraternity to bring down” his world tour, The Unforgettables. Meanwhile, in an unprecedented fiery tone, Akshay recently claimed to a Mumbai newspaper that negative stories about his personal life are being circulated by certain “back-stabbing, insecure people that try and ruin me.”

He goes on to say that he’d “never knight them, but I’d definitely hire them for Friday night entertainment,” and that it amazes him to see how “low some of those dogs will go when they feel I’m too hot for them professionally.” Ahem, please note the knight and the dog dig. If you recollect, Aamir Khan had kicked off a storm with his (in)famous dog blog post where he said that he owns a dog called Shah Rukh who among other things, also “licks my feet.”

This is not the politically correct Bollywood that we’ve grown up on; where everyone was a ‘bro’, ‘friend’, or ‘buddy’ and where adding ‘ji’ as a suffix to every name was a must (I’ve often wondered why we don’t term the fraternity as the ‘ji spot!’). This is the new Bollywood. It’s bold, brazen and unapologetic about shattering all polite veneers. Nobody here wants to win any congeniality contests.

It’s business, plain and simple, and the stakes are very high. Today it’s all about signing multiple deals, huge endorsements, opening weekend and profit shares. It’s all about landing maximum magazine covers and doing important media interviews. It’s all about being the star.

There’s one more reason behind this sudden outspokenness of the key players. And that is changing paradigm shift — these days, almost every actor is doubling up as a producer (SRK, Aamir, Akshay, Saif are producers while Salman, Hrithik and the Bachchans have family-owned production houses) so now it’s no longer just a flop that an actor has to contend with, but loss of money and goodwill too.

Add to this, the audience’s warm welcome to new actors like Ranbir Kapoor, Imran Khan, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Harman Baweja, and the sudden flood of options. So there is a mad rush amongst the big guns to guard their territories more zealously than before. And thus the barbs, the fights and the open stalemate.

It’s refreshing to see a dash of real emotions in the fake world of Bollywood. Finally, these guys are talking, and that’s most welcome. That it also makes for good television and good copy, is just a sidelight. After all, isn’t it all about entertainment? Isn’t it?