With Rajnikanth’s Kuselan (the Tamil remake of the Malayalam hit Katha-parayumbol) going for a toss (not enough of the boss, he’s only in a cameo), perhaps the Shah Rukh camp is quietly cheering. After all, the Khan too, is remaking the same Malayalam film in Hindi with Irrfan Khan in the title role of Billo Barber and Shah Rukh playing the same role that Rajni did in the Tamil version. There was an un-uttered rivalry over who’d reach the theatres first and ‘Rajni Sir’ beat SRK to it. But now that the Chennai superstar has taken a beating at the box office, Shah Rukh has all the time in the world to correct all that went wrong with Kuselan.

For starters, he should not publicise it as a huge Shah Rukh Khan film since he, like Rajni, is only doing a small role in it. It is essentially an Irrfan Khan starrer and should be marketed as one.SRK has got Priyadarshan directing his film, which is a good move since he was not the director of the Malayalam original and so can bring some freshness to Billo Barber. On his part, Rajni, who does not have a fixed price but takes a huge share of the profits, is known to forego his money when a film doesn’t fare well. He did that when Baba, his last flop,was in the red. Now, despite Rajni’s open overtures to the miffed people of Karnataka (for a remark he had made against them), the losses that Kuselan will notch up will be in the region of Rs 25 crore. So it’s a fair bet that the actor won’t be taking a big fee for his role in the film. Meanwhile, Shah Rukh, the gimmicks maestro, has already begun to package his Billo Barber with all the ingredients that draw in the audience. The story of two childhood friends, Irrfan plays a barber and Shah Rukh a super star. Few know that Shah Rukh has quietly shot a song with Kareena Kapoor, has one more lined up with Deepika Padukone and probably a third number with Priyanka Chopra too! Cleverly, SRK’s film has been shot almost entirely in Film City and Pollachi — none of those expensive foreign locations. Knowing Shah Rukh, he’ll make his buck by going into overdrive with the packaging and the hype but sell his film at a reasonable price, so that distributors get a fair return on the investment. “And the leading ladies who do guest appearances in those song sequences will probably go home with a Nokia Communicator,” wisecracked a Shah Rukh watcher. With Shah Rukh getting Kareena, Deepika and maybe Priyanka to lend the necessary glamour to Billo Barber, wonder what’ll happen to Lara Dutta, the heroine of the film who has been cast opposite Irrfan. Perhaps feature her in one of those gimmicky promotional videos, huh Shah Rukh? By the way, the unspoken Rajnikanth-Shah Rukh rivalry does not begin and end with remaking the same Malayalam film. A few months ago, at an achievers’ awards function organised by a TV channel, the Mumbai star had dimpled and asked Rajni, “Sir,who is the superstar of India?” Forthright and fearless, Rajni had promptly shot back, “Without any doubt, the only superstar is Amitabh Bachchan.”The Khan had done a gracious salaam to that but must’ve quietly simmered. Interestingly, Om, the Delhi publishers, have been behind the successful books on both Shah Rukh Khan and Rajni. While Mushtaq Sheikh’s Still Reading Khan has sold over 25,000 copies and has been printed in German too, the first print of Rajni’s authorised biography is also sold out. That was 10,000 copies and there’s a reprint in store. Clearly, the Khan is also silently battling the super star from Chennai. But what a difference between the two.While Shah Rukh went all out to promote his biography, Rajni refused to even attend the launch of his book, although it was an authorised biography. He sent daughter Aishwarya instead for his book launch. The last word: So,whose book has done better business? Shah Rukh’s or Rajnikanth’s? The answer is Dev Anand’s bio, self-promoted unabashedly by the actor himself, has beaten everybody else — 30,000 copies have been sold so far.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of Movie Mag International