Screenings at the T-Series office are like happy T-parties. It’s a multistorey office that Bhushan Kumar has built with a temple devoted to his late father Gulshan Kumar’s favourite deity, Lord Shiva. On the 13th floor is their preview theatre.
On Diwali, it was even more festive with catering by Banana Leaf, the restaurant popular for its south Indian menu, topped with the presence of Kartik Aaryan, Anees Bazmee and Bhushan Kumar. Strictly speaking, the T-Series family was not celebrating Diwali after the tragic death of Bhushan’s cousin Tishaa Kumar, who was barely 21 when she succumbed to cancer this July.
But the screening of a film starring three self-made actors — Madhuri Dixit, Vidya Balan and Kartik Aaryan — had a cheerful vibe. About 48 hours later, with the audience finally privy to who’s Manjulika in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 (BB3), it can be revealed that Kartik had enjoyed himself enormously when the spotlight was on the dance-off between Madhuri and Vidya. He was the one to spring a surprise in the climax but for weeks, he’d kept up the secret and fended off questions. After the climax became public, Kartik grinned, “I had to shoot two dances. One that happened 200 years ago and another in the present. The second was shot without rehearsals but for the first, I had rehearsed. It was Madhuri Dixit who’d helped me...”
When BB2 had been the rare blockbuster in a dire post-Covid period, Bhushan had presented Kartik with a McLaren GT worth ₹4.7 crore, prompting director Anees Bazmee to jocularly remark, “I should’ve been gifted a private plane. Tabu definitely deserved a plane.” Will Kartik who’s up against the might of Ajay-Akshay-Ranveer-Tiger-Kareena-Deepika-Salman receive another high-maintenance gift from his producer? While BB3 was shown to the media on Diwali, Singham Again played safe by not holding any pre-release screenings. Reviews and a boisterous festive weekend won’t reflect true box office collections and one will have to wait for Monday/Tuesday to get the full picture but Ranveer Singh in Singham Again is clearly the most delightful entertainer of the season.
Meanwhile, the single-again villain of Singham Again is rumoured to be breathing fresh air after breaking up with his much older girlfriend. Friends whisper that he’d found it very tough to get out of an intensely “toxic relationship”. Even while he was in it, there were plenty of moments when he’d keep aside the “healthy, low carb meal” his girlfriend would curate for him and tuck into his favourite mutton curry, saying, “Don’t let her know I’m cheating.” If villainy is his new niche, the single again can afford to become as beefy as he wants.
Singham 3 was still to be released when the teaser of another Ajay Devgn film titled Azaad was presented to the media on Dhanteras. Ajay plays the central character with his nephew Aaman Devgn and Raveena Tandon’s daughter Rasha Thadani making their debut. But the title belongs to a loyal, Chetak-like horse. This time, director Abhishek Kapoor — who launched Farhan Akhtar (in Rock On!), Sushant Singh (in Kai Po Che) and Sara Ali Khan (in Kedarnath) — spent as much time on his four-legged stars as he did with his young new actors. Abhishek bought 10 different horses to play Azaad, each horse trained for one specialised stunt. While Aaman had to learn to get on a horse, ride it and get off it, Uncle Ajay’s legendary horsemanship saw him easy in the saddle, requiring no special training.
Incidentally, Azaad was ready last year and was to have been released eight months ago in February. But with Shaitaan, Maidaan, Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha and Singham 3 making 2024 look like an Ajay Devgn festival, wiser counsel prevailed. Azaad will be a January 2025 release.
