KJo and his mojo are back. And now it can finally be told.

The big secret we couldn’t breathe about was the kissing scene Karan Johar had picturised between Shabana Azmi and Dharmendra sometime last year in Delhi. Wanting to spring an unexpected combo on the audience, Karan had sworn everybody to secrecy and kept the pairing close to his chest until release day. Shabana-Dharam is rare because they were never romantically paired in their heyday after Bichhoo — the Sai Paranjpye film that was to bring them together was aborted four decades ago. So the actors too looked forward to finally working together.

But their romance and the shooting of that scene had to be hush-hush. Though we did hear that Dharmendra, whose health has lately been a matter of concern, was kicked about his role and ready to pucker up. Mercifully, Karan kept it sweetly nostalgic.

Meanwhile, at the box office, it’s been like there are two time periods. BSSR, before the death of Sushant Singh Rajput, and ASSR, the ensuing three years and more after his tragic end.

The reluctance of the Hindi movie-going audience to return to the theatres had no other explanation since all other pandemic-affected sectors like hospitality and travel had steadied themselves and begun to boom. To attribute the viewer lethargy to the new habit of watching it all on OTT would also not have been the right answer since films in other languages were finding their audience. So it would have been fair to assume that even if SSR himself was fading from memory, the cloud that had descended on the Hindi film industry took its own time to lift.

There was, therefore, reason to cheer when Karan Johar, the biggest victim of misplaced social media anger in 2020, came out with characteristic flamboyance. In fact, Karan, who had shown signs of slowly succumbing to Aditya Chopra’s affliction of wanting to avoid press screenings until release day in the pre-Covid-19 era, has fortunately returned to his natural exuberance. With personal invites to special screenings and a designated press show, the original Karan Johar is back. As is his brand of entertaining family cinema on a lavish song-and-dance scale. It is a special kind of vindication after the vilification of 2020.

But the one who has had a big resurgence is Shabana Azmi. It began with Shekhar Kapur’s What’s Love Got To Do With It? Nominated for nine, it won four awards at the British National Awards this year, including Best Film and Best Director. Forty years after their first professional outing, the actress with whom Shekhar made Masoom and opened his innings as director, played Aisha Khan, a Pakistani, in the British comedy written and produced by Jemima Khan.

And now it’s her performance as Jamini Chatterjee in Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani (RARKPK) which is getting attention. But Shabana has had a busy diary for over two years. She and Javed Akhtar were in the UK like a band-baaja family for the graduation of granddaughter Shakya, daughter of Farhan Akhtar and ex-wife Adhuna. Adhuna, Farhan, his new wife Shibani and mother Honey Irani were all at the University of Lancaster for Shakya’s big day. A sign of maturity when couples move on and yours, mine and ours can celebrate together without nursing grudges.

Shabana had barely set foot in Mumbai and attended the special screening of RARKPK on a wet, rainy evening, when her bags were packed again. She will soon be headed for the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne for the opening night of Ghoomer, the R. Balki film that’s also like a family affair. Apart from Balki’s favourite father-son team of Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan, Ghoomer has Saiyami Kher in the lead. Saiyami, as most people know, is Shabana’s sister-in-law Tanvi’s niece. The Azmis, Khers and Akhtars are all very close and no, this Kher family is not related to Anupam Kher, who is a Kashmiri. Saiyami is a Maharashtrian from Nashik.

Also returning from a quiet trip to Europe are Vidya Balan and the dapper Siddharth Roy Kapur who used the time for a digital detox. Much like Shabana-Javed and Jaya-Amitabh, this is another emerging power couple that makes headlines, mostly for the right reasons.