When Karan Johar went to sign veteran actress Farida Jalal for an important role in Student Of The Year (SOTY), she had enough talent to show grace and not gloat before him. It was, after all, a small victory that she was scoring over the filmmaker who had passed her over in his last few productions before returning to her.

If one goes back a little, in most of Karan’s significant films like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (K3G), Farida Jalal had played the fond aunt or the dedicated house help. There was a large chunk in K3G where a grown-up Hrithik moves into older brother Shah Rukh’s house in London. Khan has no clue that this is the plump kid brother he used to indulge before he moved to London, breaking all ties with his family. And the kid who’s grown into a gym-toned Hrithik has wormed his way into SRK’s house with the single point agenda of winning over his brother and bringing him back into the family fold.

Those were the days before Facebook, Skype and an overactive Internet had taken over our lives; so Karan could get away with showing that SRK had no clue who the stranger in his house was. In a significant turn in the film, Farida Jalal, the house help from Mumbai who used to tie his shoelaces for him before moving to London with SRK and Kajol, is the first person to catch on that Hrithik is the younger brother. Karan always had Farida Jalal standing by in his films to do her bit to add an extra dose of emotion to the story. That’s until he moved on to Kirron Kher whose forte of playing the loud Punjabi won her many a role in Yash Chopra productions (like Hum Tum) and soon in Karan’s films too.

It was Kirron Kher in Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (flirting with Amitabh Bachchan) and in Qurbaan (looking unrelentingly scary in a burqa). In a spate of films, Karan chose Kirron over Farida or experimented with Zarina Wahab (My Name Is Khan). The fact that he finally went back to Farida for SOTY is a hint that the seriously superstitious Johar seeks the happy, designer-fluff success of his first two directorial ventures and wants to collect all the elements associated with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and K3G. On her part, Farida didn’t question why he had deserted her. She simply signed the film and happily got on board again.

What’s apparent to most are the firm camp loyalties of lead stars and any floor crossing by a director is quickly noted. What goes unnoticed is that rivalry and loyalty come into play even when casting side actors, lyricists and technicians. Therefore, it has also gone unrecorded that Javed Akhtar seems to be firmly out of Karan Johar’s favour. After Javed walked out of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai years ago because he had mistakenly found the title offensive or crude, Karan had turned to Sameer to bail him out at the last minute and had given him his next film too (K3G) before returning to Javed for Kal Ho Naa Ho “for the depth in his writing”. But after another fall out with Javed Akhtar more recently over My Name Is Khan — because Karan had two songs penned by journalist-turned-writer Niranjan Iyengar, and the older lyricist likes to do a whole film by himself — there is a new name in the lyrics department of SOTY. It’s Anvita Dutt (who has penned a lot of Yash Raj productions in recent years) that Karan has signed up for the lyrics of SOTY. Maybe he wanted youthfulness and not depth this time around but it does mean that Javed Akhtar is out of Dharma Productions, for the moment at least.

Meanwhile, the networking skills of the Kher family are still good. It used to be said that Yash Chopra even changed the name of his heroine from a constant Chandni to Kiran (in films like Darr) because he was close to Anupam and Kirron Kher. The iconic Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge had even carried a “thank you” in the credits to Kirron for suggesting the title.

Now, son Sikander Kher, who has been trying for a long time to find his feet as an actor, has got a big break in a Yash Chopra production. Sikander — who was last seen as a revolutionary in Ashutosh Gowariker’s Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey, where Abhishek Bachchan played Surjya Sen — has grown a thick moustache for his role as a cop in Aurangzeb. It is a significant role that Sikander has bagged. Aurangzeb is the Yash Raj film in which Boney and Mona Kapoor’s son, Arjun Kapoor, has been cast in a double role. Being part of the film industry family continues to be a boon.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is editor, The Film Street Journal