“A major portion of the film was shot in Wai, a small hamlet in Maharashtra. Every day, hordes of people would turn up to see Salman and they would scream out ‘Salman bhai, Salman bhai’. We could not control the din as we were shooting outdoors. Most of the time I would running up to Salman to give him instructions since he could not hear me from where I was standing. Understandably, I would be physically exhausted by the end of the day,” laughed Kashyap.

The director also had to get accustomed to the timings when Salman would report for his shots. “With Salman, the day starts off late. He comes in by 10.30 a.m. and is ready to shoot by 12 for a 9 a.m. shift. But once he gets into action, every scene gets canned pretty fast and we would invariably wind up the shoot on time,” said Kashyap.

If the planned 80 days of shooting were extended to 133 days, it was primarily because of the fierce action scenes that were picturised on Salman, Sonu Sood and character actor Romeo. “A lot of planning had to go into action scenes for them to have the right impact. But Vijayan Master, who had directed the fight sequences in Wanted, has gone a level higher in Dabangg.

The actors including Salman went through a lot of discomfort to make the sequences look impressive. The fire scene in a closed room where everyone started coughing due to the deficiency of oxygen was a difficult one,” he said.