Last Sunday, at Shatrughan and Punam Sinha’s wedding anniversary dinner hosted by Videocon Dhoot (somebody should give credit to Chunky Panday for starting these sponsored parties), filmland’s chief head-butter Salman Khan snorted like a bull at a matador and charged verbally at the waiting media. As always, he had a long list of grouses that mattered more to him than all the reams written in his support. Remember the time he was taken to the Enforcement Directorate for questioning and he suddenly turned back and head-butted the camera guys who were following him? To this day the TV channels never tire of airing that particular footage.

“You don’t know how he was abused by the media outside the Directorate, he was thoroughly provoked,” said his brothers in his defence. Ah, Materazzi and Zinedine Zidane, anyone? Come to think of it, Sallu and Zizou have so much in common ? not being able to take the taunts along with the taalis being a chief common weakness!

At least the media has a platform to butt him right back. Too bad that the black buck didn’t get a fair chance to head-butt Khan when his machismo was in overdrive, with a fully loaded gun and cheering cronies by his side. Nor could the dead bakery man get up and charge at him when Khan’s Land Cruiser head-butted the sleeping and left them dead/injured.

Last month, the Baabul producer-director, Ravi Chopra couldn’t believe his ears when our very own Zizou threatened to walk out of the film because he couldn’t bring himself to shoot for two days with current bete noire John Abraham. Two years ago it was Viveik Oberoi, but right now Salman’s pet peeve is John who apparently didn’t play ball with Khan during a world tour they went on. Insiders say that Salman’s so full of angst against John Abe that if they were to come face to face, he just might head-butt Bipasha’s boyfriend.

But Salman Khan’s fan following is huge and, like the French have forgiven their Zizou, Sallu’s admirers will support him, no matter what. Like Materazzi, nobody quite knows what John said to provoke the 40-year-old whose mental growth has always been pretty suspect.

“I swear I don’t know,” says St John who’s almost wearing a halo to prove his innocence. Meanwhile, John himself is rumoured to have head-butted his relationship with girlfriend Bipasha Basu. But the hiccup named Mallika Sherawat (John went on the world tour with the Murder girl) soon subsided and at 6 pm on July 6, John presented himself at Bipasha’s very private screening of Corporate where he charmed all her friends and family all over again. Show over, the twosome headed for Madhur Bhandarkar’s late night screening of the same film, this time to face the flashbulbs for we’re-still-together photographs.

But there is serious trouble in the Yashraj paradise. Parents Yash Chopra and Pam were at first devastated but have now reconciled themselves to the idea of son Aditya Chopra head-butting his marriage to interior designer Payal. For a guy who squirms in the limelight, gleeful details of his divorce are merrily leaking out. Adi’s parents are said to have been so upset with his bullishly stubborn decision that there was initially some talk of Payal staying on with them while the son moved out (a la Boney Kapoor’s wife, Mona who continues to stay with his parents, more than eight years after he moved in with Sridevi). However, close friends now reveal that while Adi has shifted into a hotel as a temporary arrangement, Payal has been given a penthouse (apart from a fat settlement) which she’s currently doing up. So, say Adi’s pals, eventually it will be the return of the prodigal while Payal will have to move on with her life and look at interiors as a serious career. “After all, there’s nothing worse than a dead marriage and that marriage is over, finito,” says an insider.

If there was trouble brewing for a long time in the Aditya-Payal marriage, it’s been the same scenario in Karisma Kapoor’s quizzical marriage too. The fevicol patchup she had last year has finally come unstuck as Karisma firmly head-butted her status as Mrs Sanjay Kapur and headed back to Mumbai where she’s ready to hear a bunch of scripts. Looks like Karan Johar’s Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna on dead marriages and divorce documents is being played out by his colleagues in real life!

Hey, psst!

*Unlike the last time when actor Sanjay Dutt was caught under TADA after the serial blasts in 1993, the Mumbai blasts this time don’t have an overt filmland connection. Except that a politician from the minority community who is being whispered as the mastermind, has a son whose steady girlfriend is a well-known actress!

Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of Movie Mag International