It’s a classic case of bouquets and brickbats in equal measure.

It happened overnight.

Days before the release of Gadar 2 (G2), a pensive Sunny Deol had told a small knot of friends that he contemplated selling his property to pay off his loan to Bank of Baroda (BoB).

Prior to G2, there was also much noise emanating from the ruling party that the higher-ups had noted Sunny’s pathetic attendance record in Parliament and his absence from Gurdaspur, his constituency. The party would dump him in 2024.

One Friday changed it all. The carnival mood and the truckloads of adrenaline that danced into theatres to celebrate Gadar put the party leadership in a quandary. Watching the robust reception to this Punjab da puttar, they couldn’t possibly cancel him openly and deny him a ticket. Nor is Sunny the kind of person you could pull up for non-performance, non-attendance or non-payment, even if all of them have been notoriously time-honoured traits of his.

Sunny has always marched to his own beat and just when you close in, thinking his game is over, his luck changes so astoundingly that it gives him another long lease of life to continue his elephant walk, unmindful of who’s sniping from the sidelines.

It’s a face-saving relief for his party that Sunny himself wants to drop politics from his life. So picking another candidate for Gurdaspur will look like an amicable understanding.

As for the BoB auction notice that went viral in proportion to his newfound success, there’s no longer any question of selling his property. Friday, August 11 was the game-changer. I have myself seen producers close to Sunny, who have nothing to do with G2, getting messages asking them to start a film with him, the punchline being, “Full finance ready”. If they have financiers at their doorstep, imagine how many more messages Anil Sharma has been getting or the incalculable offers inundating Sunny.

With the rare exception of Apne (with Anil Sharma in 2007), which did well, it is as if a 20-year line-up of financial disasters like Blank (2019), Bhaiaji Superhit (starring Sunny and Ameesha Patel in 2018), Mohal- la Assi (2018), the third edition of Yamla Pagla Deewana (2018), Poster Boys (2017), Ghayal: Once Again (2016), I Love New Year (2015), Dishkiyaoon (2014), Khuda Kasam (with Tabu, no less, in 2010), Right Yaa Wrong (co-starring Irrfan Khan in 2010), Big Brother (2007 with Priyanka Chopra), Naksha (2006), Teesri Aankh (2006), Lakeer (2004), Rok Sako To Rok Lo (2004) and Jaal: The Trap (2003), rounded off with R. Balki’s Chup: Revenge of the Artist (2022), has been inexplicably written off with Sunny becoming the industry’s most bankable hero overnight.

Talking of banks, forget about selling his property, the recharged Sunny has to only crook a finger at any three producers standing in the queue outside his Juhu bungalow to make a settlement with BoB.

Incidentally, even if OMG2 and G2 clashed at the box office, unlike the bad vibes between SRK and Bhansali over the Diwali release of Om Shanti Om and Saawariya in November 2007, there was backslapping and camaraderie between Akshay Kumar and Sunny Deol this August. After all, they are practically family since Sunny is Akshay’s wife Twinkle Khanna’s chhote papa.

If Sunny is basking in the glory of G2, the director and his son couldn’t be far behind. The whisper is that Anil Sharma’s next film, Journey, starring son Utkarsh with Nana Patekar (who also gave the voiceover in G2), has undergone a shake-up in the budget. Upping their prices, Utkarsh wants a fee of Rs 10 crore and his dad, nothing less
than Rs 15 crore.

Meanwhile, R. Balki, who dissed puja bells and holy threads in his new film, strangely placed his faith in critics’ ratings and pundits’ pronouncements, believing that they’d help Ghoomer hit it out of the park. Instead, it got bowled out for a duck with Saiyami Kher’s cricket gear probably costing more than what the ticket sales brought in.

Finally, news from the moon: thanks to Didi, Rakesh Roshan’s popularity equals that of Chandrayaan-3. Time for Krrish to take off.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author