A most-talked about friendship between the two most famous surnames – the Gandhis from Indian politics and the Bachchans from Hindi films – that had turned frosty may be showing signs of a thaw if a video that emerged on Wednesday turns out to be a telltale sign and a precursor of things to come.

Sonia Gandhi and Jaya Bachchan, representatives of their political parties and the two of the most famous families in India, had a lighthearted chat in Parliament, followed with laughter.

On Wednesday, when Opposition leaders from the Rajya Sabha walked out from the proceedings and were outside the building, Congress Rajya Sabha member Sonia Gandhi stepped out of her convoy.

Waiting to welcome her was Rajeev Shukla, a Rajya Sabha MP from Chhattisgarh. A few more steps forward, Sonia met the Trinamul’s Derek O’ Brien and the Samajwadi Party’s five-time Rajya Sabha MP Jaya Bachchan, who is also the wife of Amitabh Bachchan, one of the first friends that Sonia had made on her arrival in Delhi on the morning of January 13, 1968.

While the gestures and laughter were caught on camera, what the two spoke about was not clear.

Nobody on that wintry morning of 1968 could have thought of the highs and lows that the two families would go through in the next five decades or how they would capture and lose and recapture the Indian public’s imagination.

Neither could anyone have predicted the most-talked-about split in Indian public life that has lasted close to three decades.

“On the day Sonia ji came to the Rajya Sabha, Jaya ji went up to her and spoke with her for a while,” said a Rajya Sabha member from one of the opposition parties.

In the Upper House, Sonia occupies a seat in the first row, while Jaya Bachchan sits two or three rows behind her.

“Earlier, Sonia Gandhi was in the Lok Sabha and Jaya Bachchan in the Rajya Sabha. Their paths would seldom cross. Now the chances of them seeing each other frequently are higher,” said a Delhi-based political observer.

Sonia, a Lok Sabha member from Rae Bareli till the last term, opted for the Upper House from Rajasthan earlier this year. Her son, Rahul Gandhi, retained the family borough of Rae Bareli.

In this Lok Sabha election, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party fought together on the INDIA bloc platform and stunned the BJP. Both Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav too have displayed a rare bonhomie.

The Congress and Amitabh Bachchan, who won the Allahabad seat in 1984 with a margin that remained unbeaten for three decades, parted ways in the wake of the Bofors scandal.

Bachchan, once a regular at 10 Janpath, remained in touch with the Gandhis even after the assassination of his childhood friend Rajiv.

In 1996, the Gandhis and the Bachchans, in true Bollywood style, went on ‘dost dost na raha’ mode. While the Bachchans drew apart from the Gandhis and the Congress, they made new friends in Amar Singh and the Samajwadi Party.

While Bachchan has largely remained silent, except for an occasional cryptic remark, Jaya has been unrestrained when it comes to the Congress and the Gandhis.

In 2004, Jaya had said in several Samajwadi Party rallies that “those who brought my husband into politics did not stand by him when he was going through a crisis” in a reference to the Bofors scandal that sealed Amitabh’s political career.

Two years later, when Jaya was disqualified from the Rajya Sabha for holding an office-of-profit, the fingers were pointed at the Sonia-led Congress for creating trouble.

Amitabh Bachchan had once said, “The Nehru-Gandhi family had ruled the country. Woh raja hain, hum runk hain. [They are rulers, we are the ruled].”

Amitabh has shared a close rapport with Narendra Modi since he became prime minister. Both Amitabh and his daughter-in-law, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, were invited to and attended the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya this January.

Nearly a month after the ceremony, Rahul Gandhi at a rally in Allahabad during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra had said: “Did you see the Pran Pratishtha ceremony at the Ram Temple? Was there a single OBC face? There was Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai and Narendra Modi.”

Wednesday’s interaction revived memories of another brief encounter between Jaya Bachchan and Sonia Gandhi in the corridors of the old Parliament building on the afternoon of December 2, 2014. During lunch break, Sonia had spotted Jaya, walked up to her and held her hands to ask: “How are you, Jaya?”

The sudden encounter and the exchange of words happening after 17 years had apparently left the outspoken Jaya Bachchan too stunned to respond for a bit. She had later confided to a friend that the interaction had left her “emotional”.

Rajiv studied at Doon, while Bachchan was at Sherwood, they knew each other since they were toddlers as the families in Allahabad were close to each other.

“Why should I have spoken about our friendship? There has been no need to. Friendship is a personal bond; it is to be felt, not spoken about,” he told journalist Khalid Mohammad in the book To Be or Not to Be Amitabh Bachchan.

In another interview he had said the newer members of the families could not understand the true nature of the ties.