There’s a story going around that when Ajay Devgan’s new film, U Me Aur Hum, had an important day’s work at Ballard Estate, the bustling business district in south Mumbai, the actor got permission to shoot on a Sunday. It was a costly set of sequences that had to be filmed with dozens of cars, rain machines, cranes, and assorted cameras assembled on the road, along with a jumbo crew. This was sometime during the monsoons last year. It was mercifully not raining (the scenes, however, required artificial machine-produced rain!) and it was crucial that the day’s work be completed quickly not only because it was such an expensive shoot but also because there was no guarantee that next Sunday would provide them with such friendly weather.

When everything was in place and the cameras started rolling, it was discovered that the rain machines didn’t have the adequate nozzles to send out a gush of artificial rain. Blame and counter blame was soon exchanged but the bottomline was, no way could they film the sequences that they’d set out to can that Sunday.

That’s when Ajay Devgan showed his strength. We know this fight master’s son is as quick with his temper as he is with his fists. But on this Sunday, when all the well-laid plans went awry, Ajay remained so calm that the rest of the crew also stopped cribbing. Although U Me Aur Hum is his directorial debut, the actor-producer-director told his unit, “Since we are here, I want to shoot the scenes in a different way. It’s just an experiment but we lose nothing by trying it.”

Rudyard Kipling would’ve approved with his wise, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs….Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!”

Don’t know if Ajay will have the world in his pocket but he has certainly doused the youthful temper he was once famous for. It reminded me of what an 80-plus Dada Moni (Ashok Kumar) once told me while discussing how he kept his equanimity at all times. “I have completely conquered anger. For over 20 years I just haven’t lost my temper. I sometimes pretend to be angry but it’s not real because I don’t get angry at all.”

Going by Kipling’s ‘You’ll be a Man, my son’, Ajay has turned into a Man in his thirties itself.

After that Sunday’s shooting (which, finally, turned out to be a successful experiment and didn’t require a reshoot), Ajay told a close friend, “I’m the captain of the ship. If I had given in to anger, it would’ve percolated to every person in the unit. And we’d have achieved nothing. I’ve realised in the last three-four years that anger achieves nothing. So I just don’t succumb to it, I just don’t get angry.”

If Ajay Devgan has really succeeded in anger management, it simply means he can pull off anything if he puts his mind to it. For instance, a six-pack abs may require much heaving and puffing. But Ajay says, “I don’t have a six-pack abs right now. I have a toned stomach. But if I am required to show a six-pack, I’d need only about a month to get it. I can manage my body really well.”

What he has not managed to give up is the cancer stick, as he nonchalantly lit one in his airconditioned van. How come Ramadoss, our honourable health minister, keeps going after Shah Rukh Khan but Ajay gets no rap on the knuckles?

“It’s because you haven’t seen me make a lot of public appearances with my cigarette,” he explains. “I do smoke at functions but I request photographers not to click it. Of course you can’t stop them, but you’re a little careful about where you’re smoking.”

Ajay actually gets away because he makes few public appearances, rarely ever goes on stage and ducks the TV cameras. He doesn’t do entertainment shows and doesn’t believe in awards functions (except the National Awards where he wouldn’t dare light up before the President). Mmm, let’s wait till the U Me Aur Hum promotion gets aggressive.

Hey, psst!

A six-pack abs is really a joke. Looking at Shekhar Suman’s music videos and photographs, corporate tsar Anil Ambani has got inspired. He’s taken Satya, Shekhar’s personal trainer, to get him a six-pack too. At the next marathon he runs, don’t be surprised if Ambani does a Ganguly and flamboyantly twirls his shirt in the air!

Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of Movie Mag International