Shudder. Once upon a time — not so long ago actually — I’d sagely suggested that a psycho-analyst could perhaps help in curing the topsy-turvy behaviour of Salman Khan. The avuncular advice, unsolicited, was offered in a newspaper column. Dad Salim Khan retaliated by snarling that it was I who needed a shrink (oh well).

And so I should keep my tupenny’s worth of whatevah to myself. Fine, I never saw the Khans again, in person that is. Moral of the story: don’t ever question the mental equilibrium of the star pack. If you try to be solicitious, chances are that you may land up in a bulbul’s nest yourself. No thanks.
Ineluctably, eccentriticies, oddities and personality quirks can be sourced in the mandatory pressures of showbiz. Read hits, failures, knife-sharp competition and the incessant media intrusion. Or performance anxiety so to speak.
An A-list actor, who has been in a relationship for over two years now, confides in me, “I thought I was pretty unstable but she’s a seesaw. When she’s upset with me, she gives me a tight slap on the face. And I take it.” Yet despite the slap-stick situation the couple sticks together, flashing Howrah Bridge-wide smiles for the paparazzi. Beyond my comprehension again.
Or certain actors can be scarily unpredictable. Like Nana Patekar who can be tropical warm or Antarctica cold depending on his mood du jour. In a bid to be reclusive he can go missing for months, and then he can be all over the place. And he can storm out of a promotional press conference without a word of explanation the way he did vis-à-vis Rajneeti directed by Prakash Jha with whom he, presumably, had creative differences.
Like it or not, Bollywood breeds ego-trips, delusional paranoia (proof: the late Parveen Babi) as well as wacky kinks. Of the current lot, Govinda is identified as the emperor of eccentricities. At times, he can refuse to face the camera if he sees a stranger on the set, insisting that there are negative vibes in the air. Talk is that, when he has to shoot outside Mumbai, buffaloes are transported to the location so that he can drink his own tumbler of ‘uncontaminated’ milk. His meals are also cooked by trustworthy chefs since he is afraid that he could be poisoned. As quixotically, the otherwise pleasant-natured actor flares up if anyone addresses him by his pet name Chi Chi. Huh?
Govinda denies such stories though, claiming that he is ‘normal’. He asserts that the canards are being concocted by vested interests who are jealous of his success. Be that as it may, evidently ever since his career began floundering in the late 1990s, it would seem that an element of self-persecution has beset his psyche.
Occasionally, Salman Khan can lash out without any provocation on television or in print, as he did against Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Guzaarish, crowing that the auditoria screening the movie were absolutely empty. Such aberrations apart, the actor does seem to have cleaned up his act a bit, in his dealings with filmmakers as well as the journo clan.
How come? Perhaps he has discovered some solace in painting his pent-up feelings on canvas. Earlier though, he was the film industry’s super brat, threatening even to twist a magazine editor’s arm which was in a plaster cast after a road accident. “I’ll break your other arm also,” he had threatened. It’s another story that the editor was preventing the actor from getting physical with Aishwarya Rai at a film awards function. It was during his stormy liaison with Aishwarya Rai that Salman Khan was at his obnoxious worst.
Today he is being cast in the image of a good Samaritan. So when the crew of his film Dabangg went fishing to a lake in a small town, he was mortified. He’s no vegetarian but refused to touch the fish fry since the catch came from the film shoot’s vicinity. Go figure!
Lore goes that Sanjay Dutt often devises his own lines of dialogue in the dubbing studio. Wary producers and directors allow him to do that, no questions asked and even heap praise on ‘Sanju baba’. The ‘baba’ epithet sticks although the actor is 51. At the end of a day’s shoot, he also invites his friends and technicians for a round of drinks. No one dares to refuse even though the night may have dissolved into dawn.
Kajol has a phobia about getting photographed with her fans, to the point of being offensively rude. Similarly, Tabu is spooked out by crowds and breaks into tears if she can’t handle a claustrophobic situation. These may be signs of fear rather than eccentricity, but both the actresses are reputed for their aloofness. Even with their closest friends since decades, they can behave like total strangers.
Initially, Akshaye Khanna was Mr Congeniality himself till some mysterious Kryptonite-like element turned him into Mr Sullen. He speaks only when spoken to, in monosyllables, glares daggers and can hold up a photo-shoot because he wants another neck tie. An hour later, for lack of an alternative, the same neck tie is shown to him, and he says, “This one is much better.”
Of course, no one has quite equalled the eccentricity levels of the late Kishore Kumar and Raaj Kumar. If Kishore Kumar didn’t feel like shooting suddenly, he would just shave off half his moustache. The shoot would be cancelled till the moustache was back in shape. He would ask his assistants to run up and down a staircase of six-storey buildings just for the heck of it. And once at a music concert with Lata Mangeshkar in New York, he accused the songstress of speeding up the revolving stage to ruin his act at the Madison Square Gardens Hall.
Lata Mangeshkar, on her part, has clothed all the supposedly ‘nude’ Filmfare award trophies in saris, skirts, sarongs and ghagras at her home so that they don’t look obscene.
As for Raaj Kumar, the thespian is believed to have made a teetotaller film producer guzzle Siberia-sized pegs of whisky with him if they were to work together. Another producer, who didn’t know how to swim, was compelled to join him for a script reading session in sea — at high tide!
Thank the lord, I wasn’t around to suggest a bit of psycho consultation then.