Nikhil Advani - (Karan Johar)- An article

'Salaam-e-Ishq' has come and gone, leaving a lot of angry people in its wake. In fact, a film that had its conception and gestation amid ruffled feathers has come home to roost leaving a veritable stink at the rotten eggs that have been hatched. To get to the root of the story, the director of the mega flop 'Salaam-e-Ishq', Nikhil Advani, had initially had a fallout with his mentor Karan Johar and his Dharma Productions post his debut film produced by them, 'Kal Ho Naa Ho'. When that film became a hit, Karan was laughing all the way to the bank. Everybody called it Karan's hit, barely remembering that it was his friend and assistant, a newcomer, Nikhil Advani, who had directed the film. But that did not deter Nikhil from forking out credit humbly to his 'mentor', saying how elevating and liberating it was to have made his first film with Dharma and how he would always be grateful blah blah, and so on and so forth. What caused the fallout was some nasty personal remarks he allegedly made about Karan at a public gathering that had Karan gasping when he heard about it. Anyways, the result was Nikhil was persona non grata anymore for Dharma Productions. Which also included their extended families of Yashraj films, the Shah Rukh Khans and the Saif Khans of the world.

This was the climate in which Nikhil Advani announced his intentions of making his second film, 'Salaam-e-Ishq'. For his second ambitious venture, Nikhil, now broken off from the Dharma umbrella, was finding difficulty at every step. Initially, his casting refused to fall into place because the Karan Johar campers were loath to participate in a venture with Nikhil Advani, in case that might rub Karan the wrong way. After all, if they had to choose sides which they did, Karan was Celluloid Czar and Nikhil was Nowhere Man just yet. Even as far as producers were concerned, nobody wanted to sign up with Nikhil and possibly invoke the wrath of the mega production house and their definite campies, namely some of those really big stars we mentioned earlier, who they might need for their films in the future. Why take panga? That too for a newcomer? No way!

Nikhil went from pillar to post trying to get either his cast together or find a producer, neither of which seemed to be happening with any ease. Till one fine day, he went to Sunil Manchanda (of Salman Khan 'Tere Naam' fame), and Sunil agreed to produce the film. Sunil Manchanda was a heaven sent Messiah in more ways than one to a desperate Nikhil. Sunil's producing the film went one strep further when he roped in good friend Salman khan for the film. It was only after Salman Khan's entry that the other actors opened their doors to Nikhil and the film's cast finally fell into place. The project was finally completed on paper and they moved on to shoot extensive schedules abroad and here, and soon enough, the film was ready for consumption by the public.

'Salaam-e-Ishq' released but failed desperately to capture the audiences who found it too long winded and their expectations from both, the one hit director, as well as his mega cast fell flat. It is believed that all was also not well between director Nikhil Advani and producer Sunil Manchnada after the release of the film. You don't need to be a member of the Mensa to figure out why. Six different couples, twelve different big names, one common problem: 'Salaam-e-Ishq'. The film with 12 names, some very big and some reasonably so, turned out to be a complete damp squib. In fact, people said Govinda was the only bright spot in a film where all the other artistes, big and small, were nothing else but mediocre. Moreover, the film had greatly shot over-budget and once the audience verdict was out, it wasn't even bringing the expected returns. Sunil had reason enough to be mad at Nikhil.

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To top it all, at a complete tangent to this story, recently, Somy Ali, Salman's long time girlfriend and current ex, had apparently sent him some text messages on his cell phone. Salman, in an emotional mood of confiding, told Nikhil Advani about them and showed them to him, asking him to keep it confidential (there would be hell to pay if 'Kat'rina, Salman's current girlfriend got to know). Rumouredly, Nikhil went to town with the SMSs and told a lot of people about them. There! Salman's secret was out! Salman was hopping mad obviously, and vented his spleen to his friends about how Nikhil could not be trusted with a confidence. Sunil Manchanda featured at the top of Salman's dost list. So Sunil was additionally pissed off with Nikhil for making his favoutire star angry.

Next thing you know, Sunil Manchanda was supposed to produce Nikhil Advani's next film as well, and after the chain of events where Nikhil seemed to specialise in rubbing everybody the wrong way, Sunil had backed out of producing Nikhil's next. Which might very well mean one of two things. There's an old saw, 'Make your enemy's enemy your friend'. If you subscribe to this theory, Karan Johar might very well accept Nikhil back to please his best star and buddy Shah Rukh Khan and rub the Salman Khan camp sore. Or if that doesn't happen, Nikhil may find that this time round when he goes with the begging bowl to producers, the list of people unwilling to be a part of his project would be multiplied twice over, the Karan Joharites and the Salman Khanites and all their extended parivaars. It is all very well not to bow down to someone else's whims if they are being professionally unreasonable. But Nikhil, under the guise of being an open man, seems to be a borderline case of plain, mealy-mouthed bitching. If you notice, in both cases, it was a far from professional issue but rather the personal comments that Nikhil had made that severed him from important segments of the industry. Considering the way this industry functions, Nikhil would do well not to walk with both his feet in his mouth. He's bound to get his butt scraped, and badly!