Amitabh did not want me in his films -Shatrughan Sinha

Amitabh Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha may share amazing camaraderie today, but there's no denying that both of them were staunch rivals at one point of time and used to avoid talking to each other. They were indeed at loggerheads with each other. In a recently released biography, Shatrughan Sinha spills the beans on why Amitabh did not wish to work with him. Here go the excerpts from the book:

"People say that Amitabh and I made a dynamic pair on screen but if he did not wish to work with me, if he felt that in Naseeb, Shaan, Dostana or Kaala Patthar  Shatrughan Sinha bhari pad gaya(having Sinha around worked against him), it didn't affect me," he said nonchalantly. "There were so many films that I dropped out of and returned the signing amount. There was a film called Patthar Ke Log - one of Prakash Mehra's - written by Salim-Javed...so many films that I gave up without a backward glance because of Amitabh Bachchan.

SS had a simplistic explanation for what went wrong between Amitabh Bachchan and him when they had so much going between them. "The problem was the applause I was getting for my performances," he said shortly. "Amitabh could see the response I was getting. That's why he didn't want me in some of his films."

With a little probing, another angle cropped up - women of course. "People say that Zeenat Aman or Rekha also contributed a little to the rift," SS dropped their names slowly. "Maybe they didn't like something about me and they said something to Amitabh Bachchan, or maybe they said things about me because I knew a lot about them. To strengthen their position, they would be by Amitabh's side. During Kaala Patthar, a

heroine who was known to be very friendly with him, would visit him. She would come duringDostana also but not once would he bring her out and introduce her to any of us. In showbiz, everybody knew who was visiting whom. The media would immediately know if Reena was in my make-up room. Such things can never be hidden in our world."

By the time Kaala Patthar happened, there was barely any semblance of the friendship that once was. "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. We'd be heading from the location towards the same hotel but he'd sit in his car and never say, Let's go together'. I found it all very strange and wondered why this was happening because I never had any complaints against him."

The stand-off spilled over to the sets. "There was a fight sequence in Kaala Patthar which I had been told would be an equal fight," SS explained. "But along with fight master Shetty who is no more, it was changed to Amitabh beating the hell out of me, beating me constantly until Shashi Kapoor separated us. On this point I had to put my foot down and protest that this was not what had been narrated to me. What if Shashi hadn't turned up, that means I would've been beaten to a pulp by Amitabh? How

did that qualify as an equal fight? Apart from being unfair, it wasn't logical either because, if I was going to be in a one-sided fight, then after interval how was I again shown taunting him the same way I did before the fight? I had to argue this out and shooting was stopped for three to four hours which irked Amitabh."

According to SS, tweaking a scene was not a new trait in Amitabh. It had happened even duringDostana. "Once, Amitabh had wanted the scene done in a particular way and Raj Khosla, the director, didn't oblige him. Amitabh had hit out so belligerently, almost abusively, that a senior like Raj Khosla was reduced to tears. Rajji couldn't believe that he could be talked to in such a manner by an actor."

Anything  But Khamosh: The Shatrughan Sinha Biography

Author: Bharathi S Pradhan

Publishers: Om Books International