Life goes on and it’s going to be best understood by Sanjay Dutt when he goes away for a spell (for a short while or a long term is anybody’s guess). While he’s wrapping up all the loose ends of his life before giving himself up, the unit of PK, the Rajkumar Hirani film he put on his list to buy himself more time, is readying itself for one of its final schedules of shooting in the capital city. Delhi will be getting a good dose of Aamir Khan and Raju (they’re even going to be filming inside a book store) and the shoot will go on while Sanju completes his term in jail.

It is the same in the Yash Chopra household. Last year, this time, it would have been unimaginable for Pam Chopra to attend every party, function and film festival she is invited to, without Yash by her side. In fact, all invites would be for him and she would simply accompany him. Today, Pam is determined to keep stepping out which is rather admirable. When her close friend Gita Kak (former actress who was splendid in old films like Garam Hawa) wanted her to be a part of an art and artefacts auction (for Surabhi, also the name of the cultural programme Siddharth Kak used to host on TV), Pamela Chopra not only fetched up but also got the organisers the prize catch of Shah Rukh Khan as star auctioneer. SRK is always a delight on stage, a thorough entertainer, and he played the part like one of his film roles — energetic, over-the-top and successful.

Similarly, when Pam was invited to an Indian film festival in Melbourne (along with Farah Khan, Simi Garewal, Vidya Balan et al), she didn’t hesitate to accept it. The invite that would have been for Yash Chopra plus one at one time, now went to Pam plus one. So guess who was pencilled in for the plus one ticket? Not so strangely, she picked her former daughter-in-law, son Aditya Chopra’s ex-wife Payal to go with her to Melbourne. So, even if life goes on after Yash, the pattern continues. Payal will always have a place in Pam’s house and heart as she did when Yash was alive. Irrespective of how Aditya and Rani feel about it. And Shah Rukh will always shower “Pam Aunty” with the same respect that he did when her husband was around.

Shah Rukh is a funny mixture of heart and head... when he’s not losing the latter, of course. Cleverly, his presence hung around the cricket ground in Mumbai even when he was not physically allowed inside. After losing his head, obstinately refusing to apologise and having a five-year ban slapped on him by the MCA, by simply giving out a quotable quote (“What will they do if I go there? Shoot me?”), he ensured that the spotlight stayed on him even while he stayed away and had to sit by his large TV screen to watch his team lose to the Mumbai Indians.

The one dubious distinction that separates Kolkata Knight Riders from all other IPL teams: with SRK and Gautam Gambhir around, every time they come out for a match you don’t know who’s going to be more obnoxious today — the owner or the captain?

Without Shah Rukh to hog camera time, the TV crews stayed firmly on the ground and the players, with occasional glimpses of a more controlled Nita Ambani this season. Although Mukesh, her husband, is always present, the cameras don’t get him because he makes a quiet entry, takes his seat in one corner with his family (sisters et al) around him, doesn’t make a noise, doesn’t get up even to grab a bite, and stays far away from the dug-out. If he has gifted Nita a $100 million cricket franchise, he lets the spotlight be trained on her, not him.

Incidentally, the Net is full of really cruel jokes and jibes at Nita’s obese son, Anant. Calling him a “beached whale” is one of the mildest remarks made about him. What is little known is that Anant is a 17-year-old with a huge heart that ticks for animals. He loves animals, wants to learn about their welfare and spends hours with them. On their sprawling Jamnagar premises, the Ambanis have an assortment of animals, and it’s one of Anant’s favourite places. Every year, the animals are also carefully brought to Mumbai for a day for the children of Nita Ambani’s school to interact with. This way, the school kids begin to understand animals from a tender age.

It would be wonderful to highlight Anant’s unspoken soft spot rather than his obvious obesity (an eternal battle because of steroids that were a must for an asthmatic condition) — or a superstar’s cheeky middle finger to an establishment.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is editor, The Film Street Journal