Last month, anyone who didn’t know about the Bihari vs Bihari stand-off, would not have noticed the icicles in the room when Shatrughan Sinha and his wife Poonam celebrated their 27th wedding anniversary. It was also the anniversary of TV producer Markand and Kanchan Adhikari (the famous Adhikari brothers own Sab TV). So the Sinhas and the Adhikaris invited their friends to the spacious Adhikari Villa in Juhu for a double celebration.

The Sinhas had pointedly left out fellow Bihari, Shekhar Suman, whom they haven’t spoken to for more than five years. And the Adhikari brothers who are extremely close to Shekhar, made it a point to call him and his wife Alka for their party! So you can imagine the reaction from the Sinhas and their cronies when Shekhar, dressed in his favourite designer Rohit Bal creation, merrily strolled in with Alka.

“I didn’t know it was the Sinha anniversary too,” Alka Suman quietly giggled to me, a trifle embarrassed. “Shekhar told me about it only in the car when we were nearly here.” Shekhar was more blasé about it since he’d known that it was going to be a Sinha celebration too, but he still chose to attend it instead of staying away. After exchanging a cold, polite greeting with Shatru, Shekhar just kept away from the Sinhas, guffawed a lot, cracked all his spontaneous one-liners and spent all his time with a cigarette, a glass and the Adhikari clique.

At one time, being the only Bihari star to have made it in the Hindi film industry (now there’s Manoj Bajpai too), Shatrughan Sinha’s evenings used to be incomplete without Shekhar’s company. Of course, those days Shatru was the celebrity, the successful star with loads of films in his kitty while Shekhar was the actor of films like Utsav, who hadn’t made it to the bigtime. He had dabbled in TV (he did serials like Wah Janab) but television those days was strictly the refuge of failures and didn’t have the fame it now enjoys. So, clearly, Shekhar was the underdog. But he was always the bright one who could think on his feet and repartee in Hindi and English with equal ease.

It was precisely this talent for ad libbing, this sense of fun and spontaneity, his comfort with two important languages that made equations change very soon. Shekhar became one of the biggest stars of Indian television and within two years he’d gone from struggler to millionaire! From his neatly maintained ground floor flat in Andheri East to the spacious apartment of his dreams in the more upmarket Versova happened within three years.

Shekhar had fame and fortune of his own but his special equation with Bihari babu Shatru continued. However, at a function organised by the Indian Television Academy (ITA), pioneered by Shatru’s closest buddies Shashi and Anu Ranjan, Shekhar did a friendly turn as the emcee of the evening, which turned the friendship on its head.

By now, Shekhar Suman had become synonymous with wit that spared no one. Unfortunately for Shekhar, some of the good-natured digs he made at Shatru that night didn’t go down well with the Bihari and his wife who were baying for his blood by the end of the evening. Shekhar couldn’t believe it because his hosts, the Ranjans, had assured him that there would be no problem with the ‘sporting’ Sinha. But once they realised that Shatru had not reacted like a sport, everybody washed their hands of the script and Shekhar was left facing the Sinha wrath!

Since then, the Bihari men have not been on talking terms. Shatru feels that Shekhar owed him for all the years that he’d stood by the struggler. Shekhar had lost his 11-year-old son, Aayush, to a painful and prolonged heart ailment, “And I had stood by him through it all, even given him money when necessary,” says Sinha. So he couldn’t see the humour in the digs that Shekhar made at the ITA function; he felt it had been disrespectful and ungrateful. On his part, Shekhar feels that he did no wrong. When he’d had his apprehensions, Shashi Ranjan, who is practically Shatru’s spokesperson, had clearly told him to go ahead without fear. “Even if that were true, how could Shekhar have listened to him and talked about me like that?” demands Shatru.

As in all cold wars, both sides have a point. But it would be nice if they just shook hands and made up. After all, it’s only the two of them who’re missing out on each other’s company while the third parties who created the differences are having the last laugh.

Hey, psst!

I’m currently in London attending a publisher’s daughter’s wedding. And the buzz is about Shilpa Shetty’s fling with local businessman Raj Kundra who is backing her perfume, her book and other dream-come-true ventures. His estranged wife Kavita may have gone to the media about Shilpa, the “husband snatcher”, but Londoners are concerned with more practical matters than moral ones. Said one insider to me, “Shilpa has got carried away by his Ferraris and flashiness. But he’s not as loaded as he seems to be. She’ll soon discover that.” What Shilpa Shetty has discovered is that she has to make hay while the sun shines in the UK because back home in India the offers from an unimpressed Bollywood are still zilch!

Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of Movie Mag International