Dubai royalty invites Bollywood for the first time

Mumbai Mirror Bureau

Imran-Akki-Sona's Dubai stint included a royal encounter, a dinosaur egg and a reality check.

Now here is a royal audience that Akshay Kumar would rather forget. The actor along with rest of the Once Upon A Time in Mumbai Dobaara cast was in Dubai for promotional duties and scored an invite to the royal residence.

Once at the palace they were welcomed by Sheikh Mohammed bin Maktoum bin Juma Al Maktoum, the son-in-law of Sheikh Mohammed, the monarch of Dubai. And it went downhill from there.

Unfortunately for Akshay, Imran and Sonakshi, the Sheikh's knowledge of Bollywood stopped at Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan. Imran introduced himself as the nephew of that actor from Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak but Akshay had no such Khan connect to elaborate on.

The Sheikh tried to plow through the awkward silences by name-dropping SRK but little did he know that he was making the situation worse, given that the team was there to promote a film which has long been tagged as the rival to SRK's latest release Chennai Express.

At one point, Akshay asked the Sheikh which Bollywood movie he had watched last and pat came the reply, "A Shah Rukh movie!" Akshay gave up after that and the stiff silence resumed.

And in a rather brilliant attempt to amuse his guests, the royal brought out a rather delicate curio from his collection, a dinosaur's egg procured from Korea.

The Bollywood duo had to showcase the best of their acting chops to keep a straight face as they admired their host's proud possession.

Sonakshi whipped out her phone for a picture and Imran patted the extinct relic. And as usual it all ended with a photo opportunity but thankfully the egg did not make a special appearance in there.

😔