Dirty secrets emerge as Smriti boots out Yuvraj

by Meenakshi Shankar

Oct 21, 2008, Mumbai

It's a pitched battle between 'Waaris' producer Smriti Irani and actor Yuvraj Malhotra. If sources are to be believed, the two have been spewing venom at each other. And now, Smriti has drawn first blood by throwing Yuvraj out of her show. The reason cited is 'goondaism' on the sets. Wait, did we hear that right? We thought it's just our politicians who throw their weight around. But as the story unfolded, we found out that this small screen story has its fair share of politics and insinuations.

The story goes that Yuvraj recently got into an altercation with a production unit member. So angry was Yuvraj that he beat up the unit member black and blue. The tough taskmaster that she is, Smriti immediately issued the marching orders to Yuvraj. And it seems that absolutely nothing will push her to change her mind. Not even the intervention of the channel head, with whom Yuvraj apparently has connections.

One only needs to look at Yuvraj's past behavior on sets to understand his innate violent streak. While shooting for Ghar Ki Lakshmi Betiyaan, he was smitten by his co actor Twinkle Bajpai. But when the lady spurned his advances, our hero whipped out a blade and slashed his wrist in true filmy style. No, the lady was not moved enough to fly into his arms. The only people who came running were the production members who rushed a hollering Yuvraj to the safety of medical care. News of the incident didn't make it far outside the sets, thanks to the highly placed officials in the channel who shushed everyone into silence.

With this latest misadventure, Yuvraj seems to have taken his role way too seriously. Incidentally, Waaris is a telly remake of Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar. In the process, he has earned the ire of several production houses in the industry. One source says on condition of anonymity, "We all know who has been protecting him from being slandered. But merely being a toy boy isn't enough to ensure smooth sailing in the industry. After this incident, no production house would be willing to touch him with a ten feet barge pole."

We caught up with the actor for his side of the story and he fumed, "If the channel has indeed been protecting me, why am I out of the show? It's all planned by Smriti Irani. She had an issue with me right from day one and I never understood why." But pray, what had the poor unit member done to deserve the pasting? "The 'beating up into pulp' story is fiction. The production guys can say what they want to save their jobs. I have bruises too to prove that I was hit. I was unwell and was kept on wait. Like an emotional fool, to ensure that my show does well, I put in more than the stipulated hours. Yes, I did lose my cool when I saw nothing moving. And when I pulled my weight around, things got out of hand. But, then every fight has two sides to it. What is leaking out is merely putting me in a bad light! The production unit saw this as a chance to throw me out of the show and they grabbed it without a second thought." Wow, now isn't this story getting juicier by the minute?

From what we hear, Smriti indeed had an issue with the bloke. But as you would have guessed by now, the channel convinced (read arm twisted) her to give him a chance. When we quizzed Yuvraj about his much-touted 'connections', pat came the reply, "Name one actor who does not have connections with the channelEvery actor has a relationshipAnd there's nothing really right or wrong about it

" Now, we would have agreed with that if we didn't know more about his dubious connections. We understand that the actor shares a relationship between the sheets with the upper echelons of the channels. The long silence from Yuvraj that followed this question can be mildly described as 'shock'. In fact, so stunned was he that after his silence, he completely side-stepped the question. Not that our question needed any more answering.

As we ended our conversation with him, he was still scathing in his attacks on Smriti. "Smriti Irani is one producer who I will never work with. She may walk with a chip on her shoulder thinking she is the almighty personified, but she will fall and when she does, I will be watching her fall. In fact, I think she runs a cartel in this industry and everyone's scared about talking against her at the risk of losing their job."

Sigh! Nobody seems to be convinced. Not even his mighty 'connections' in the channel who chose to remain tight-lipped about the fiasco.

http://www.tellywatch.com/telly_news/waaris_smriti_irani/october-21-2008/waaris-smriti-yuvraj_2.html