Is it sheer coincidence, pure conspiracy or a publicity stunt that whenever Akshay Kumar has a film ready for release, the action star gets embroiled in some controversy that takes on national proportions and gets played out on all channels with full drama?It happened before Chandni Chowk To China and, earlier, Singh Is Kinng. Now just after the Khiladi’s new big film hit the screens yesterday, Akshay is in the thick of two burning issues relating to a promo for Sajid Nadiadwala’s July release Kambhakth Ishq and his being a somewhat daring showstopper at the Lakme Fashion Week for designer Tarun Tahiliani on Monday.
According to his detractors, the Kambhakth Ishq promo has Akshay holding the sexy Kareena Kapoor suggestively with his lines reading, “Women are good for only one thing...” The film promo, released on March 27, has tongues wagging in disapproval already. And at fashion week, well, his walking the ramp in jeans that were unbuttoned partially by wife Twinkle sitting among the frontbenchers, has led to a social worker filing a complaint with the police against the actor, his wife, the LFW organisers and also the hotel where the event was held for indecent, vulgar and obscene behaviour..
The police is uncertain whether it has a case. And legal experts vary between being vague about the law and dismissive of the complaint. But Akshay is furious. These aren’t publicity stunts, he declared.
Earlier when dragged through similar fires, the actor scoffed at the attempts to defame him as being the work of a leading contemporary in Bollywood who was insecure about his meteoric rise in the film industry. But this time, while not taking names and hinting that he knew who was behind the exercise, Akshay is determined to prove a point.
Apologising if the jeans-being-unbuttoned stunt hurt anybody’s sentiments, he said that the entire act was part of the storyboard and was no big deal — thereby shooting down the rumour that it was done at the last minute because SRK was going to be Manish Malhotra’s showstopper later that night. And of the Kambhakth Ishq promo, again he chose to take the actor’s way out by saying, “Why do people forget that actors play roles, enact parts and deliver lines to get reactions... they are never personal?”
The promo, incidentally, gives only half the line. “Wait for the complete line,” advised Akshay, “then women will be glad to know how the jerk I portray eventually sees the value and importance of the superior gender — the woman!”