COFFEE,TEA OR TIFF?

It started as a gag. At the IIFA awards on Saturday night in Macau,Boman Irani brought the house down with his spoof on Anil Kapoor’s Slumdog Millionaire quizmaster avatar in a segment called,Who wants to be the Slumdog? In the hot seat was his co-presenter Riteish Deshmukh who was posing as Aamir Khan. Whenever Riteish would give an appealing answer,Boman would respond in Anil’s Slumdog accent: ‘Fantastic,fabulous,mind-blowing,mind-blasting… chaiwala (the latter in reference to Dev Patel’s character in the Danny Boyle film).

Though Anil smiled at the spoof,it was apparent that he was not amused. Surprisingly,he took it out on Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. When Anil came on to the stage to present the Star of the Decade (Female) Award to Ash,he announced her name in the same manner: “Fantastic,fabulous,mind-blowing,mind-blasting… my favourite chaiwali.” To this Ash retorted,“Thank you… fantastic,fabulous,mind-blowing chaiwala.” Though Ash said that with a smile but her facial expressions didn’t leave anyone in doubt that she didn’t find the whole thing a wee bit funny.

Industry watchers feel the Anil-Ash on stage fracas,though unnecessary,wasn’t really unexpected. The recent L’Oreal controversy between Sonam and Ash when the former was unceremoniously dropped last minute from walking the red carpet at Cannes allegedly on Ash’s orders didn’t go down well with Anil. He wanted to make his displeasure known and he did just that.

Both Ash and Anil did not revert to our clarification-seeking text message.