Jan. 10: "Applause" and women were responsible for break-up of the dostana (friendship) between Shatrughan Sinha and Amitabh Bachchan, according to Anything But Khamosh: The Shatrughan Sinha Biography.
Sinha said each time he received a "bigger" applause for performances in films in which he co-starred with Bachchan, he stopped doing movies with him. "Amitabh could see the response I was getting. That's why he did not want me in some of his films," Sinha says in the book released last week.
Sinha, who claims to have introduced Bachchan to Bollywood, has blamed Zeenat Aman and Rekha for creating the rift. "Maybe, they (Zeenat and Rekha) did not like something about me and they said something to Amitabh, or maybe they said things about me because I knew a lot about them," Sinha has told biographer Bharathi S. Pradhan.
During the making of Yash Chopra's Kaala Patthar (1979) - featuring Sinha, Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Parveen Babi and Neetu Singh - a heroine not part of the film used to visit Bachchan regularly, the BJP MP says in the book.
"She would come during Dostana (the 1980 hit starring Sinha, Bachchan and Zeenat) also but not once would he (Bachchan) bring her out and introduce her to any of us," Sinha says.
He then cites his own example: "In showbiz, everybody knew who was visiting whom. The media would immediately know if Reena (Roy) was in my make-up room. Such things can never be hidden in our world."
During the Kaala Patthar shooting, Sinha says Bachchan kept a distance from him even though they were "great buddies" during their initial years in Bollywood. Other members of the group included Subhash Ghai, Asrani, Anil Dhawan and Anwar Ali, comedian Mehmood's brother.
"On the sets of Kaala Patthar, the chair next to Amitabh would not be offered to me, nor would his umbrella be ever trained to cover any of us," Sinha said, adding, "we would be heading from the location towards the same hotel but he (Bachchan) would sit in his car and never say, 'let's go together'."
The standoff spilled over to the sets. In Kaala Patthar, according to the book, there was a fight scene where Sinha was told by stunt master Shetty that he and Bachchan would fight as "equals". But when the scene was shot, Bachchan, in Sinha's words, "kept beating the hell out of me, beating me constantly until Shashi Kapoor separated us".
Sinha says he instantly took up the matter "with the director (Chopra) and the fight master, pointing that this was not what had been narrated to him as part of the script. The on-screen rivalry between Sinha and Bachchan is considered a high point of the film.
Sinha says many people used to say he and Bachchan made a dynamic pair on screen. "But he (Bachchan) did not wish to work with me. If he felt that in Naseeb, Shaan, Dostana and Kaala Patthar, Shatrughan Sinha bhari pad gaya (Sinha overshadowed Bachchan), it did not affect me." Sinha alleges in the book that when his father died during the making of Shaan, Bachchan did not offer condolences.
In the biography, filmmaker Ghai says he was aware that Bachchan and Sinha had differences when they were at their peak. "I once told him (Sinha), watch Deewaar, Amit has given a very wonderful performance in it. He (Sinha) turned around and told me, 'Abhi kya main Amitabh Bachchan se acting seekohoonga? (now will I learn acting from Amitabh Bachchan?)'," the book quotes Ghai as saying.
