When an attractive middle-aged model, who doesn't colour her hair but sports the grey in it with stylish panache, got a call asking her to shoot a commercial the next morning, the bait she got for the last-minute offer was that her co-star would be Amitabh Bachchan. The model who is a south Mumbai grandma took it in her stride like any other assignment. She didn't do cartwheels or slash her fee but reported like a professional the next day.

It turns out, it wasn't one of those fun working days for her. She got her first culture shock when Amitabh strode in from his vanity van and the entire crew rushed to greet him and touch his feet, except for this model who continued sitting in her chair.

It was an ad for a jewellery brand which had Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan playing grandparents in the Hindi version while this model was brought in for three south Indian language versions. Jaya had a contract to do only the Hindi commercial with her famous husband. So this well-maintained model, who also has grey un-dyed streaks of hair like Jaya, played Amitabh's wife in Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada. The shoot was full of celebrities as, apart from the Bachchans, Nagarjuna and Prabhu from the South were also flown in to play various uncles of a young bride. But the model who stepped in as AB's wife and didn't have much to say or do in the shoot found her co-actor cold and uncommunicative.

Even between shots when they sat next to each other, Amitabh did not once look in her direction, smile, break the ice, make her comfortable or speak to her at all. They simply shot as grandparents sitting together at a jewellery shop and shared no conversation. Was it because she was the only one who didn't get up and go greet him?

It is true that actors are so used to attention that they notice it when one person sits it out and doesn't add to the general adulation. Perhaps it's taken as snootiness and not welcomed. Whatever the reason, it was surprising that Amitabh was actually cold to a female co-worker. Surprising because, as one has often said in this column, Amitabh is the only best-selling actor who unfailingly stands up when a lady walks into his vicinity. Why would a man who believes in such charming old world etiquette expect a woman to stand up when he enters the set? I wonder if it would help if I told Amitabh that the lady who played his wife instead of Jaya in the commercial was his old friend, renowned distributor Shyam Shroff's sister-in-law, Asha Chhabria.

It's a rare occasion when Amitabh gives the cold shoulder to any lady working with him. On the contrary, he's always grace personified in public. I have to mention here that when I wanted Amitabh Bachchan's inputs for a book I was writing, he instantly agreed to a Q&A by email. On a Sunday afternoon, I mailed him the questions with a little footnote asking him to please refrain from terse one-word answers and to please give me full-fledged answers embellished with incidents or stories. Unbelievably, within two hours flat, his reply arrived with well-written answers full of wit and quotable quotes.

He is, without a doubt, the most gracious public figure in the country and makes the best ambassador for the Incredible India campaign. But ignoring a lady who's sitting next to you because she didn't rush to greet you? That's incredibly incongruous.

A quick aside: talking of celebrity ads, we've often discussed in this column how the rich and the famous must be careful about what they endorse because their exorbitant fee is due to the credibility they're supposed to bring to the table. Therefore, the legal flak faced by Kerala star Mammootty for endorsing a fairness product that did not lighten a consumer's skin is completely in sync with the responsibilities that go hand in hand with success. Celebs now have to learn to add indemnity clauses to their contracts.

This column had also said that despite box office success and a favourable court verdict, Salman Khan shouldn't be popping the champagne. Because this should be deep introspection time for him. One has to add that his mother's health is also a cause for concern. Her card friends missed Salma because she was ill for weeks. There were unexpected fallouts of a bariatric surgery she underwent months ago, her condition compounded by the tension of Salman's legal cases. There are some things money just can't buy.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author