Entertainment is what this brother and sister duo does best. While Sajid Khan is a master of spoofs laced with bedroom humour, Farah Khan makes stars dance to her tune. Sajid’s career kickstarted with the show Main Bhi Detective and was followed by shows such as Ikke Pe Ikka and Kehne Mein Kya Harz Hai.

From a career in stand-up comedy, he went on to become a television anchor and right now he’s busy directing his first film Hey Baby. The romantic family comedy stars Akshay Kumar, Fardeen Khan, Ritiesh Deshmukh and Vidya Balan. But Sajid insists that Farah, who’s already made her debut as a director with Main Hoon Naa, had absolutely no hand in his first film. “We hardly take each other’s advice as such,” emphasises Sajid. All that Farah is going to do is choreograph a song or two, because at the time, she will be busy with her own film Om Shanti Om (starring Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone).

Sajid:

We are more like brothers. If you ask Farah, she’d say that we are more like sisters. As long as I can remember we have always been together. Farah is five years older than I am, so from an early age she took care of the entire house. We did not have a very happy childhood, because we were poor and came from a broken home.

We were emotionally divided between my parents and were shunted between Juhu and Bandra. My sister and I never spoke about the issue of divorce, but we knew that we’d always be there for each other. But I must say that I am not against the concept of divorce. It can often work out for the better and I believe that children from broken homes find good partners for themselves.

My father, a filmmaker, lost all his money in the industry. So we had to find ways of paying off his debts. When I was about 14 years old, my father expired. And I grew up almost overnight. I started doing door-to-door surveys where I was paid Rs 20 per form. And Farah put together a dance group that would perform at shows. It was a glamorous choice and I began to compere these shows.

From that stage, I metamorphosed into a deejay. Farah was worried about me as was the rest of my family because I was headed towards hopelessness. There was little money in doing shows, as I was just another boy.

I’d always hang around with Farah and her friends because mine were from the slums. This was how I got my break into the world of stand-up comedy. I had gone with my sister and her friends to an inter-college fest. The sound system had failed in the middle of a show. Since I was known for cracking jokes and being an entertainer of sorts, the organiser, who was a friend of my sister’s, prodded me to go on the stage and keep the audience occupied. So there I was, a 14-year-old boy among a crowd of 18-year-olds, cracking adult jokes. I got an encore at the end.

Farah and I had an unspoken pact that neither of us would get married and we’d always live together. When she got married, I felt a bit betrayed. But we all move on. And even though we hardly get time to catch up, we do meet up once in 10 days along with our common friends like Arbaaz Khan and Sajid Nadiadwala. Or it’s family occasions as we have a huge extended family.

Farah:

We fight all the time. Actually nowadays we don’t fight as much as we used to when we were kids. But we can’t do without a fight once a week, which is as often as we meet. We had a traumatic childhood and on top of that there was this nine-year-old problem child of a brother whom I’d have to lug around everywhere. It got on my nerves as his friends used to come along too for my dance shows. Things changed however when he turned 16.

My memories of Sajid are of a monster child who’d pee on carrom boards and annoy me endlessly. We even chased each other with knives. Thankfully my mother never got to know about that incident. We never had a filmi relationship where you swear undying love for each other. It’s a bond that goes beyond the normal brother-sister relationship for we’ve always taken care of each other.

I remember this one time when my friends and I went over at night to a guy’s place and smashed his bike because he’d hit my brother. Of course the incident took place when I was in college. And then Sajid once created a furore at a producer’s office when the latter refused to pay me Rs 5,000. One thing that really touched me was when on Rakhi, he decided to pay all my bills for a year. But then at the end of every fight, when I got to hear no end of the fact, I really wished it away.

I am so habituated to him that it’s hard to break the things we shared. Sajid is an insomniac, so in our small flat, we’d watch movies till late at night. As a result, even now I cannot sleep unless the television is switched on and I can hear it blaring. We might spend quality time together and all, but I have a grouse. My advice goes unheeded. Nobody wants to listen to it. Not even my husband. And my brother is no exception!