Bollywood Baatein: Who’s the biggest prankster of ’em all?

Alot of our seemingly serious and not-so-serious stars are major pranksters in real life. In the earlier era the prize for Prankster No.1 would surely have gone to Asha Parekh who stole Sunil Dutt’s chappals once and hid them under the seat of a chair at a studio. Poor Dutt Saab had to go home bare feet. If only Asha had tried her prank on M.F Husain!

Frankly, the fun and games have gone from the sets…Unless you have Abhishek Bachchan shooting. Nothing can stop Jr. Bachchan from creating a hyperventilating hungama when the cameras are off.

I remember at the mahurat of Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna at Film City, Abhishek fooled around non-stop, pulled everyone’s legs mercilessly. But when he gave the movie’s first shot with his dad and Rani, he was perfect.

So is Abhishek the biggest prankster in Bollywood? I can’t say because he has several serious contenders….Akshay Kumar, for instance. I’m talking about the Akshay I knew until a year ago before he decided to take the ‘King Kumar’ label seriously. Akshay would call and do unbelievable impersonations.

I must confess I got taken in several times. Once Akshay called pretending to be this publicist seeking write-ups for a model-turned-actor. The weird accent, the whiny unctuous voice…Akshay got it all right. I was taken in….until Akshay burst into peals of laughter. One other time he masqueraded as this annoying insurance agent trying to hard-sell LIC policy.

The best prank I’ve seen played was on the set of Aankhein at Kamalistan studio. Poor producer Gaurang Doshi was the butt of an elaborate joke among Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar and Arjun Rampal. They all mock-chided Gaurang mercilessly for not going to see Arjun’s newly-born baby in the hospital. Poor Gaurang was almost in tears. Finally, his trio of tormentors burst into laughter.

Akshay Kumar (before he became ‘King Kumar’) had another peculiar habit. In the middle of a normal conversation while driving to work, he would suddenly start speaking what sounded like gibberish. Turned out, Akshay would suddenly start reading a hoarding that would catch his fancy, and incorporate the slogans in his conversation.

Abhishek is quite a strong contender for the Prankster No.1. Often when he’s shooting he answers his co-stars’ phones and sends off SMS on their behalf which they’ve no idea about. Abhishek met his match when he was shooting with Priyanka Chopra. While he wasn’t looking, she sent off a romantic SMS to one of his co-stars. Mercifully female. Though I haven’t seen that side of them, I’ve heard Ajay Devgn and Aamir Khan are also major pranksters. Poker-faced Suniel Shetty is known to be up to some antic or the other.

Aamir’s favourite prank was to spit in his co-stars’ palms while pretending to read them. Apparently, his favourite co-star Juhi Chawla felt Aamir went too far with his joke. They stopped talking for many years and finally made up.

Once, long ago for April Fool’s Day Aamir apparently called his close friends for a screening of Mangal Pandey. Eager movie buffs reached the venue only to find both the movie and the star missing.

Of course, Mangal Pandey turned out to be the biggest joke of them all. Very few actors have a sense of humour about their work. So don’t try joking about even their worst films -- unless she happens to be Rekha who tells you with a chuckle she had “blink-and-miss” roles in Bhoot and Krissh.

Or Shilpa Shetty who laughs uproariously about how “hideous” she looked in her earlier films. These are rarities in an industry where the joke is always on others.

(This article was first published in National Herald on Sunday.)