Bollywood: From being Kangana Ranaut’s ‘Sir’ to being her ‘Sir-dard’
Kangana Ranaut always had an anger management problem
Kangana Ranaut (Photo Courtesy: Social media)
Subhash K Jha
Published: 14 Dec 2020, 2:00 PM
Engagement: 475
There was a time when Kangana Ranaut was actually very dear to me. When I saw her for the first time on screen in Gangster, I saw an exceptional talent making her debut. I congratulated her.
“Sir, you don’t know how much this means to me,” Kangana was emotional. I was moved by her lack of affectation. She spoke her mind, and never mind the diction. She was one of her kind. We warmed up to each other instantaneously. She shared her problems with her co-stars. And she seemed to have a problem with all of them: Emraan Hashmi, Shiney Ahuja, Upen Patel, Prabhas… you name ‘em. Kangana had an issue with all of them. I lent her a sympathetic ear. I genuinely believed she was the wrong one.
The first time we met was at the Marriott in Mumbai. We were supposed to meet for lunch. But I got delayed at Karjat on the outskirts of Mumbai where I had gone to meet my friend Sanjay Leela Bhansali who was shooting Saawariya. Kangana didn’t mind postponing the lunch to the following afternoon.
We met over lunch. I made the mistake of inviting Randeep Hooda also. Randeep being Randeep(oozing superiority and extra knowledge) began to give Kangana gyan on how to conduct her career. Kangana shut him up with, “I don’t need advice from you.”The lunch went downhill from there. She later vented her disapproval at my having invited a third party. Later, much later, when she was shooting with Randeep for Once Upon A Time in Mumbai, they were friends. I was the common enemy.
After the memorable lunch, my second encounter with Kangana’s temper tantrum happened when I was in Mumbai for the premiere of Saawariya. Kangana and I spoke excitedly on the phone. We made plans to meet and chat in the evening at the premiere. I told Sanjay that Kangana and I will sit together, so he can give her passes to someone else.
A few hours later, Kangana was at her shrill peak on the phone asking me what right I had to make a decision on her behalf, cancel her passes, etc. I had never seen this roop of her volatile personality. Her tone was a bit too much to take. At the premiere that evening we barely acknowledged each other. As the number of people she had a problem increased, I found myself being one of them. When did I change from Kangana’s Sir to Sir-dard? I think it was when Aditya Pancholi in a no hold-barred (taped) interview with me spoke out against her, accusing her of using him, his clout and his money, etc. He also gave out lurid details of their affair, which I had the sense to expunge from the interview.
What was printed was enough to damage my relationship with her permanently.She was on the phone weeping. I felt awful. In hindsight I regretted the interview
Soon to my surprise, I received a legal notice from Kangana accusing me of all sorts of things that made no sense to me. It was a turning point in my affection for her. Later, I got to know that sending legal notices is a way of life for her. If you hadn’t received a legal notice from Kangana Ranaut, then you didn’t count.
We stopped being friends after that. Later, when Hrithik Roshan reached out with documented evidence of his woes against Kangana, I kept a distance. Not because I was scared of getting another love letter (legal notice). But because by this time I knew this was not the Kangana Ranaut I once knew, the caring, warm moohphat who kept a mannat for me when I was in trouble. In no time at all, I had become the trouble for her.
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