Shah Rukh Khan-Salman Khan to Karan Johar-Kajol: From friends to foes to friends again

By Rajiv Vijayakar -

November 29, 2023 - 2:18 PM IST

It is often said that only those whose friendship is very intense can become enemies. This Diwali, Tips’ supremo Ramesh Taurani’s party saw Govinda and David Dhawan sharing great vibes. There were headlines all over about their ‘patch-up’. And why not? After doing 18 of the director’s 44 films in the last 35 years, beginning with Dhawan’s directorial debut, Taaqatwar (1989), Govinda and Dhawan had parted ways about a decade ago.

Shah Rukh Khan-Salman Khan to Karan Johar-Kajol: From friends to foes to friends again

The problem began, reportedly, when the actor suggested that Dhawan remake the 1980s Sai Paranjpye cult film, Chashme Buddoor. The actor expected the filmmaker to cast him, as he was going through a lean patch, but Dhawan cast Rishi Kapoor instead. Govinda’s contention was not so much the casting, but the fact that the director hid this from him. Dhawan, in turn, reportedly resented the excessive questioning by Govinda’s secretary about this and decided not to work with him again. This led the actor to tell The Times of India, “I don’t want to work with David Dhawan as he didn’t stand by me during my bad patch.”

This latter statement, however, was not true at all. In actual fact, Partner (2007) remains the actor’s only super-hit in the millennium. In the 1990s, however, Govinda had quipped that he had two wives—one was Sunita and one was Dhawan! And Dhawan’s latest film, as of now, is the 2020 redux of one of Govinda’s biggest hits with him—Coolie No. 1, with son Varun Dhawan, which was a washout on OTT.

But now, the duo has decided to let bygones be bygones.

Season of peace

The Diwali season also saw Salman Khan and Arijit Singh patch-up after a 9-year feud. Salman had tweeted, “Pehle gaane ki pehli jhalak. LekePrabhuKaNaam! Oh haan, yeh hai Arijit Singh ka pehla gaana mere liye. Song out on 23rd Oct.” The patch-up was reportedly engineered by composer Pritam for Tiger 3 and Arijit also rendered the other song, ‘Ruaan’.

Things between them had gone wrong when Arijit had upset Salman with what he thought was a harmless joke at the star’s expense (Salman was the host of a ceremony in which Arijit had won an award). Salman had even got the Sultan song ‘Jag ghoomeya’ dubbed by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Arijit’s desperate apology had fallen on deaf ears. But now, happily, things fell into place.

Karan Johar too, melted away his hostility towards Kartik Aaryan by announcing a project (with Shobha and Ektaa R. Kapoor of Balaji Telefilms as co-producers) with Kartik Aaryan. The bone of contention reportedly had been Kartik’s walking out of Dostana 2 over ‘creative’ differences about the script. This time, Karan stated that he was thrilled to work with the actor and expressed the hope that every movie they would now do would create magic.

From friends to foes to friends

In the recent past, Karan has mended fences also with Kajol and Kareena Kapoor Khan. Earlier, he is said to have a phase of bad blood with Shah Rukh Khan too. But the most prominent tiffs had been between warring horses Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan and also the latter with Sunny Deol.

Salman Khan & Shah Rukh Khan

Salman and Shah Rukh had been close right from the beginnings of their respective careers, with Salman also offering a roof above his head for the latter in his struggling days. However, an unfortunate remark by Shah Rukh at Katrina Kaif’s birthday bash eons ago led to bad blood that seemed permanent. However, these fast friends of yore could not truly stay away from each other and celebrated their truce by doing cameos in each other’s respective home productions, Tubelight and Zero. Today, the YRF Spy Universe has facilitated more such cameos and the film Tiger Vs. Pathaan is also said to be on the anvil.

Shah Rukh Khan and Sunny Deol

This was a shenanigan that lasted three decades after Darr hit the screens in 1993. Sunny hinted that SRK’s role (it was the beginning of his long association with Yash Raj Films) was enhanced vis-à-vis his own and had his arguments on the sets about the logic of scenes between SRK and him. In retrospect, he said that all these things now seemed “childish” and that it was praiseworthy that Shah Rukh praised him and Gadar 2 and called him up too. Later, Shah Rukh even graced the Gadar 2 party.

Aditya Chopra and Ajay Devgn

This time, the bone of contention was the common release dates for YRF’s Jab Tak Hai Jaan and Ajay’s co-production, Son of Sardaar on Diwali 2012. Ajay alleged that theatres and screens had been manipulated to YRF’s advantage and that his film was suffering. He even filed a legal suit, which he lost. Soon, when a show was arranged to showcase the late Yash Chopra’s heroines, his wife Kajol was conspicuous by her absence.

However, in 2022, Aditya Chopra announced a superhero film with Ajay, and YRF were also given the international distribution rights of his production and directorial, Runway 34. Unfortunately, date hassles prevented the superhero movie from taking off.

Shreya Ghoshal and Pritam

In 2012, Shreya Ghoshal was upset with composer Pritam when her version of ‘Raabta’ was overdubbed by other singers and her version was retained only in the Agent Vinod album. In one of the least-know disputes of recent times, she did not record with him for a good while. Happily, however, that fracas is a thing of the past.

Also Read: Shah Rukh Khan graces an event to honour 26/11 heroes at Gateway of India, watch