At a time when the Padma awards are under scrutiny, one wonders why nobody ever thought of asking why veteran writer Salim Khan, who has credentials of his own apart from being Salman Khan's father, was offered only a Padma Shri. After all, he has often spoken up for the present dispensation, especially for Narendra Modi, and was present, along with his famous son, for the Prime Minister's swearing-in ceremony too, in 2014.

Who can forget the time Rajdeep Sardesai, as is his wont, tried to elicit an anti-2002 remark from Salim Khan on prime time TV but got an unexpected reply? The question might have worked on the other writer of Sholay , Javed Akhtar, who specialised in calling Narendra Modi dangerous for the country. But this co-writer of Sholay turned around and logically asked Rajdeep if anybody even remembered the name of the chief minister of Maharashtra during the 1992-93 communal riots in Mumbai. It was such a surprise counter to the bash-Modi agenda that Rajdeep opted to preen that he knew who the CM of Maharashtra was in 1992-93. Okay, we too now remember it was Sudhakarrao Naik but Salim Khan had obviously argued that out in his head before taking the question on camera.

Against this background, why was the elderly writer, who has also written socially relevant columns for daily newspapers, offered only a Padma Shri at the age of 79, when his former partner had been decorated with it years ago and had been upped to Padma Bhushan category too?

Salim rightly turned down the lowest-rung Padma offer but someone in the PMO obviously messed that one up. And hurt a very useful ally in the bargain.

One hears that revised offers were similarly turned down by Salim who'd had enough and thought it would set a bad precedent if every second awardee wanted a higher honour than the one offered to him.

One also hears that unlike his former writing partner, Javed Akhtar, who readily followed his wife into the Rajya Sabha, Salim has swept aside overtures from politicians who have tried to offer him a seat in the Upper House. "One has to be interested to be interesting. And I'm not interested," he reportedly quipped.

Looking at the haste with which others jumped at political privileges, honours and offers, Salim Khan laughed, "They are like people who're running from the last dibba of a running train to the front compartment, thinking they'll reach Delhi faster." Or, he added, "They're like the man on the platform who runs towards the train when it's the train that's heading towards him and the platform."

Salim Khan's humour is always refreshing but one also knows that underneath it all is a worried 80-year-old father who's watching over his controversial brood and trying to keep them all safe. By the way, wife Salma who's lost all her weight is keeping better health now.

But causing concern right now is Rishi Kapoor's octogenarian mother Krishna Raj Kapoor who's at Breach Candy hospital with a heart condition. "We'll show her a pack of cards and she'll come out of it. If it had been a Kapoor male, a bottle of Black Label would have done the trick," laughed her card-playing friends, trying to make light of it. Krishna herself has such a fabulous sense of humour, she'd have joined in the fun and added a few remarks of her own about the Kapoor men.

By the way, the cranky and impatient Rishi Kapoor, who sat through three to four hours of prosthetics and make-up every day to play a granddad in the new film Kapoor & Sons , was so excited about doing something way out of his usual zone that he was present with the rest of the cast at the trailer launch on Wednesday. However, a minute after the launch started (an hour and 15 minutes late), Rishi didn't go towards the stage but scooted from the auditorium. He'd just received a call. Fortunately, at this moment, his good-humoured mother's condition has stabilised.

Humour is also what saves Shekhar Suman from letting any situation seem too grim and sombre. Recently, he was performing his dialogue-laden play Ek Mulaqat with Deepti Naval in Ahmedabad when a 30kg light fell between them, slightly touching Shekhar's sleeve before crashing heavily on stage, missing the actor by a centimetre. When the mess was quickly cleared and the actors calmly resumed the scene from precisely where they'd been so rudely interrupted, the audience erupted into rapturous cheers for them.

Shekhar later said, deadpan, "If, God forbid, I'd been standing just a centimetre that way, the audience would have had to say, 'Shekhar gave a deadly performance today.'"

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author