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There’s a storm heading towards Priyanka Chopra and one isn’t sure if she’s even got a whiff of it. A few days after the release of 7 Khoon Maaf, she was flying into Mumbai from the US where she had gone for a short break, when she got into an ugly scrap with a fellow first class passenger, a heart surgeon. The experience, by the end of the flight, turned out to be anything but first class for either of them.
The dailies in Mumbai had picked up the mid-air squabble between the actress and the heart surgeon which, said reports, started when the doctor objected to Priyanka continuing to talk on her mobile phone despite an announcement requesting passengers to switch off all electronic devices including cell phones. “You’re endangering all other passengers too,” was the doctor’s verbal rap on the knuckle. So, did PC mutter ‘sorry’ and switch off her mobile like a good girl? No, went the story. Instead she turned on the doctor and gave him an earful, a colourful one if his version is to be believed. That led to a fracas between the two of them with the airline crew having to step in and calm tempers down.
“The man was drunk and obnoxious,” Priyanka later retaliated in her reply to the news report.
Unfortunately for PC, the doctor she entangled with is a man of means, operates in the US and like all Americans, knows the word “sue”. A whisper from across the Atlantic states that the doctor in question is fuming and will not be taking this “defamation” lying down. Lawyers have already been tapped, legal notices have been despatched, there is apparently some video evidence too, and the doctor himself is scheduled to fly down in June to meet the media and take the legal case further if need be.
In other words, if PC doesn’t apologise to the man, there is a good chance of this turning into a legal battle. Either way, watch this space.
The guy who christened Priyanka “Piggy Chops” is having kittens. In fact his whole family is anxious about Dum Maro Dum, the new release that comes after a row of debacles like Raavan, Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se and Game. After Raavan, Abhishek had been seriously demoralised (something he himself told me a couple of weeks ago), wondering whether the scathing reviews meant that he’d forgotten his craft. “The last release before Raavan was Paa and I’d got glowing reviews for it, some even compared me to my father. And a couple of months later they were saying that I couldn’t act? Had I forgotten to act in these few months?” It was a question that bothered him and the rest of the family, with Amitabh, Jaya and Aishwarya doing their best to pull him out of the demoralised state.
Luckily for Abhishek, the film he was shooting for after Raavan was Dum Maro Dum and director Rohan Sippy, his childhood buddy, understood what he was going through. That was a huge help but it didn’t help that the next couple of films also flopped. Which makes Dum Maro Dum a very important release for the Bachchans. In fact dad Amitabh was anxious to see it and had the Sippys arrange a special show for the family on Tuesday night. The Bachchans have their fingers crossed. Whatever the box-office verdict, at least Abhishek won’t get personally whipped the way he was for his last three releases. For now, that should give some relief to the Bachchans.
However, one thing’s for sure. Whatever he thinks of Dum Maro Dum or any of Abhishek’s work, Amitabh Bachchan won’t tweet or blog about any of it any more. Last year, after he made some noises about his son’s performance in Raavan being patchy because of curious editing (the editor was Resul Pookutty, the Oscar winner), there was such a ruckus and a retaliation from Mani Ratnam that AB no longer goes public with his comments on Abhishek.
But here’s something even more curious. What had made it really unpleasant was Mani Ratnam’s repartee to Amitabh on Twitter. But if insiders are to be believed, Mani had been characteristically Sphinx-like after the release of Raavan, his personal equation with Bachchan unchanged. Because the repartee apparently came from a fake account and had nothing to do with the filmmaker. “Mani does not even have a Twitter account!” provides Abhishek with QED finality. All’s well in Maniland, once again.
