
Navjot Singh Sidhu says he warned Shah Rukh Khan ‘Bollywood will eat you like a sausage', recalls his savage response
Sidhu recalled meeting SRK in Lucknow after a match and how SRK was fanboying over him, but in return, he told him that he watched television to see him in Fauji and Circus. When Kapil Dev asked Sidhu who SRK was, he recalled replying, "He is a big star."
Sidhu then remembered asking SRK about his future plans and how he warned him against working in Bollywood. "He said, Sir, I am going to Bollywood. I said, 'Teri mat maari gayi hai? (Have you lost your mind?)' I told him, 'you need parents there, you need someone who can support you. Your parents aren't there, you just told me'. He told me, 'Sidhu saab, I will manage.' I told him, 'there's cutthroat competition there. They will eat you like a sausage for breakfast'. That's the exact line I told him," Sidhu said.
He then recalled SRK's response to his warning and said, "SRK said 'Sidhu saab, can I say something?' He told me, 'I don't compete with anyone. I am my own competition'. He is a very polite man. He was very polite, and he is the same even today. Abhishek Bachchan came on our show, he said, 'SRK is the only guy who is not insecure'. Only that person can not be insecure who knows that he is like the Himalaya mountain and small things couldn't affect him. He was still like this."
SRK made his comeback to the big screen with Pathaan, and created a stir at the box office with the film earning over ₹1,000 crore gross. He followed this success with Jawan and Dunki. Now, the actor is currently working on his upcoming film King. Helmed by Siddharth Anand, the film also reportedly stars Suhana Khan, Deepika Padukone, Rani Mukerji, Abhishek Bachchan, Abhay Verma, Saurabh Shukla and others in key roles.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Time of India
5 hours ago
- Time of India
Shah Rukh Khan's lookalike has more fans than some celebs, but refuses to meet King Khan for one reason. Who is he?
So, who exactly is the man? Why he does not want to meet SRK? While scrolling through Instagram and you've casually stumbled on a reel of Shah Rukh Khan quoting his iconic Om Shanti Om dialogue at a mall or dancing at a wedding in Dubai, you're not alone, but you're also not quite right. That man, with the long skily hair, killer charisma, and signature outstretched arms, isn't the King of Bollywood. It's Ibrahim Qadri , a lookalike who's become something of a celebrity in his own right. With over 2.2 million followers, viral videos with tens of millions of views, and global bookings, Qadri is living a life most influencers dream journey into the world of lookalike didn't start on a film set or through a planned photoshoot. It began at an IPL match in 2017, where the crowd went into a frenzy thinking King Khan himself had arrived. It was then the he realised the power of his many impersonators rely on just physical similarities, Qadri takes things a step further. As reported by Vogue, he's studied Khan's walk, mannerisms, dialogue delivery, and even expressions. He treats it like a performance art , one that he keeps honing every time. According to him, what began as a 10% resemblance has now reached about 30%, with room to this, he also personally hand-stitches replicas of SRK 's most iconic looks, including the MET gala outfit, which was originally designed by Sabyasachi. His video on the same has crossed 1.4 million views and netizens are going gaga over his SRK resemblance is a blessing and a curse. While Qadri now travels globally for appearances, from private parties in Muscat to Bollywood nights in Dubai, fame follows him everywhere, even when he's just buying groceries. 'People start pulling at my hands, my shirt, thinking I'm him,' he says. Some shopkeepers even charge him extra, convinced they're dealing with King Khan despite being a lifelong fan, Qadri has no desire to meet SRK in person. 'You should never meet your heroes,' he believes. In his eyes, Shah Rukh Khan is more than a person, he's a myth, a legend, and perhaps best left untouched by the end of the day, Ibrahim Qadri sees himself as an entertainer, not just a lookalike. He makes sure to keep his personal life separate from the limelight, staying grounded despite the fame. But whether he admits it or not, to millions online, he is Shah Rukh Khan. Two years ago, a video of him spreading his arms like SRK during an airport security check went viral, racking up over 50 million views in just a few days, proof that his resemblance continues to leave the internet stunned.


India Today
10 hours ago
- India Today
Mamata's Bangla film diktat and the Devdas syndrome
It was Assamese filmmaker Pramathesh Chandra Barua who turned Sarat Chandra's Devdas into a movie in 1935 and made the tragic hero a legend. The Bengali film in which Barua played the eponymous hero was an instant commercial hit, and spawned several Hindi versions over the decades but couldn't match the OG film's success. Devdas isn't just a film but has come to represent the journey of films in India. Devdas has also become synonymous with a person who wallows in Devdas of 1935 witnessed success when the Bengali film industry was known worldwide. It is the same industry that has slid and needs corralling from the giant Hindi film industry, August 13, the West Bengal government of Mamata Banerjee made it a must for theatres in the state to screen Bangla films with at least one screening in the prime time slot of 3 PM to 9 pm. Bangla films every day, 365 days of the year. This sounds like a diktat, and a symptomatic treatment of deep-rooted issues. But some industry experts have lauded Bengal's move, calling it much-needed."Film business is best left to the law of demand and supply," says Avijit Ghosh, senior journalist and author of multiple books on Indian cinema."It is important to nurture local film industries, but this is not the right way," Ghosh tells India Today Digital. He says "Subsidising shooting, giving easy loans to producers, and tax-free status to films" are better ways to boost regional film Borpujari, a filmmaker who has won the National Film Award twice, welcomes West Bengal's decision. He says even European nations have strong film policies to support local cinema to prevent them from being gobbled up by idea is to give equal screening opportunity to regional films over the Hindi film the success of Devdas in Bengali in 1935, Barua directed the Hindi version of the film the following year with KL Saigal in the lead. That didn't match the original film's by 1939, the Bengali film industry, based in Calcutta (now Kolkata) was to hit a rough patch from which it would never return to its SCREEN RESERVATION MIGHT HELP REGIONAL CINEMATalking about the Bengal government's move, Borpujari sites Maharashtra's example."Maharashtra already has something like this, and it has benefitted the Marathi film industry to a great extent, bringing in audiences to the theatres," Borpujari says such steps are needed even for Assam, his native state, as it is a major struggle to get screening space in the face of Bollywood film releases which dominate all screen space due to bulk regional films doing well have to be pulled down from theatres because of Bollywood's dominance a very good step to support local cinema. Assam needs something like this. Though Assam doesn't yet produce as many films as Bengal or Maharashtra per year, a workable model needs to be found," suggests move to boost the Marathi film industry by reserving screen time has worked because of the state's film-making infrastructure, which ironically, has developed with the rise of reservation in Bengal might be fine, but does the Bangla film industry produce enough movies to attract June, 13 Bangla movies vied for theatre space with filmmakers questioning why they weren't getting enough shows, according to a report in The Times of big question is if good-quality content is available as it has been a complaint that the industry was resorting to cheap remakes of South blockbusters. When the original films are available on OTT, will anyone go to the theatres to watch remakes? Will lack of good content turn theatres into ghost buildings?EXODUS OF TALENT AND BENGAL GOVT'S FILM DIRECTIVEAvijit Ghosh, whose many books include Cinema Bhojpuri, says, "Putting the onus on film distributors and theatres isn't a democratic way of encouraging local films".advertisement"In the past, different states have imposed similar diktats with indifferent results," he adds, hinting that the outcome might not really be positive for the Bangla film fact, Assam, during the peak of Ulfa-led insurgency, saw a ban on Hindi movies after threats from the outfit. Dozens of theatres shut too witnessed an undeclared ban on Hindi movie screenings for two decades. People defied the ban in 2023 to watch the Vicky-Kaushal starrer Uri, which was based on India's surgical Ghosh suggests instead of a blanket diktat is that the Bengal government diagnose the deep-rooted problems before offering a treatment."The Bengal government should be looking deeper into the problems ailing the film industry, which was once famous globally," Ghosh tells India Today Bengali film industry, now referred to as Tollywood, was India's foremost till around 1939, when World War II threat of aerial bombing of Calcutta by Japanese forces during WW II got theatres in the city to shutter and industry stalwarts to relocate to Bombay (now Mumbai).The impact of this migration was clearly visible in the current state of the Bangla film the wartime exodus of talent to Bombay, Bengal's film industry struggled to reclaim its former dominance, but it retained cultural prestige through the rise of the parallel cinema movement in the 1970s and like Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak kept Bangla cinema in the global conversation, while commercial hits from Uttam Kumar to Prosenjit Chatterjee drew mass audiences at over the last two decades, the industry has been plagued by an overreliance on formulaic remakes of South Indian blockbusters, leading to creative stagnation. Srijit Mukherji's arrival briefly offered a breath of fresh air, blending intelligent storytelling with box-office appeal. Yet, despite occasional good films, the industry has largely continued down the same repetitive path. It has been struggling to balance artistry with mass TURNS ACTORS INTO POLITICIANSIf Bangla film industry is to be resurrected, it has to be supported with financing and infrastructure, and not knee-jerk solutions."These methods [resorted to by Bengal] are shortcuts, which seek to avoid the real issue for populist reasons," says Ghosh, the author of When Ardh Satya Met Himmatwala: The Many Lives of timing of the move by the Trinamool Congress-led state government makes one question the Bengal is headed for Assembly election in 2026, and Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool is taking on the BJP with 'Bhasha Andolan' or language agitation as a key Congress's greatest contribution to Bengals film industry is to turn stars into Moon Moon Sen and Dipankar Dey to Soham Chakraborty, Dev, Nusrat Jahan, Mimi Chakraborty, Neel Bhattacharya and Saayoni Ghosh, the list is really also blame Trinamool's nepotism and politics of vengeance against actors and filmmakers among the reasons for the slide in the industry, which was gathering some pace since is exactly why the move of screen reservation is accused of being motivated by politics and wallowing in self-pity, just like the tragic hero, is a metaphor for loser biggest tragedy with Devdas is that though many around him sympathise with him, no one seems resolute enough to make him kick the Devdas, the Bangla film industry too needs help and support, not sympathy. Bangla filmmakers are inheritors of legends like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Rituparno Ghosh and Aparna Sen. The way ahead should be one of pride, not of self-pity.- EndsTune InMust Watch


Pink Villa
14 hours ago
- Pink Villa
Shah Rukh Khan and Suhana Khan's King may not release before 2027, Here's why
Shah Rukh Khan, who was last seen in Rajkumar Hirani's 2023 film, Dunki, is all set to make his solid comeback with King. The upcoming film co-stars Suhana Khan, Deepika Padukone, Rani Mukerji, and Abhishek Bachchan. The movie was earlier scheduled to hit the screens in 2026. However, it seems that SRK fans will have to wait more for his big return to the cinemas. King's shoot delayed due to Shah Rukh Khan's injury? If a latest report of Mid-Day is to go by, the makers have delayed the filming of King due to Shah Rukh Khan 's shoulder injury which he had while shooting an action sequence for the action thriller. Quoting an insider, the report stated that the King team has paused the shooting as the 59-year-old superstar requires some rest for a couple of weeks before he can face the camera again. King is an "action-heavy" film so the makers don't want to take a chance with SRK's health, the insider added. King to release in early 2027? The report further suggests that King was being shot in an extensive schedule in Mumbai. The makers of Siddharth Anand 's directorial venture were then planning its next schedule internationally. With the latest development, the King team is now in the process to decide the upcoming schedule. Talking about the release date of King, the insider further revealed that the action thriller co-starring Suhana Khan was earlier supposed to be released on Gandhi Jayanti in 2026. However, considering SRK's injury, the release date may get pushed by months and eyeing an early release in 2027. King is the 'most explosive action film' in Hindi Produced under the banner of Yash Raj Films, King will have some of the biggest action sequences in Indian cinema while competing with global standards. 'It's the most explosive action written for a Hindi film," a source told Pinkvilla last year. "Shah Rukh Khan and Siddharth Anand are extremely happy with how the script of King has shaped up and are now ready to roll with it by March 2025. It's a 6 to 7-month schedule, planned all across the globe and the makers are committed to bring the film to the big screen in 2026. The scale of King will be at par Pathaan and a treat for the cinema-going audience,' the source added back then.