We asked for five, we were granted two. When it comes to haggling for time with superstars, every minute counts, and obviously, every question too. Which, honestly, most of the time fails to pop out for one is literally gagged in the such glamorous company. This is exactly what happened when Mr Salman Khan signalled us in a very Patrick Swayze Dirty Dancing style. All this time, we stood at the road to Kurali, in the fields, preparing Q&As for Ajay Devgan because “why would Salman Khan bother to talk, or even acknowledge small town scribes? Do superstars like him really need to give interviews?” There we were, dumbstruck with a bolt from the blue, blushing ear to ear till a bouncer nudged and pushed, “go, he’s calling you.” Off we went, only to be told, “Can we do this another day, I have a real nasty back ache,” Salman stood up, did a back stretch, and got ready to leave. It had been a long day, scenes between him and Ajay in the fields, him dressed up in the bandwala’s red uniform, Ajay in his South Hall London look with dangler earrings - seriously you could hook your clothes on it! One last round on the bike with Ajay, and they unit packed up, calling it a day. “I’ve shot here so much, that I’ve almost seen entire Punjab...I like it here, especially the food,” Salman warms up, setting time for another day. It may or may not come, but the man left us with his next film, Wanted. We certainly wanted more!
Meanwhile, director Vipul Shah voiced his concern over the smoke signal. “C’mon, we are doing a Rs 50 crore film here, and something like this was quite a setback...I just want the shooting to go on smoothly. All I want to say is that we had no idea about the ban on smoking here, now we do and we are adhering to the law,” he says. We are grateful!
