When Shatrughan Sinha said Amitabh Bachchan had a problem with ‘applause’ he was getting: ‘Found it all very strange’

The film industry has always thrived on competition and sometimes, the competition turns into a rivalry between two leading stars of the time and so was the case in the 1970s when Amitabh Bachchan ruled the roost and Shatrughan Sinha was giving him a tough competition. Sinha revisited this phase of his career in his memoir, Anything But Khamosh, where he recounted that Amitabh did not want him in some of his films because he could see “see the response I was getting.”

Amitabh and Shatrughan starred in several films during that era, but as per Shatrughan his colleague wasn’t keen to work with him, “The problem was the applause I was getting for my performances”. The rivalry between the two stars was at its peak when they starred in Yash Chopra’s Kaala Patthar. Sinha recounted that “the chair next to Amitabh would not be offered to me, nor would his umbrella be ever trained to cover any of us.” He shared in the memoir, “We’d be heading from the location towards the same hotel but he’d sit in his car and never say, ‘Let’s go together.’ I found it all very strange and wondered why this was happening because I never had any complaints against him.”

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Apart from Kaala Patthar, Sinha and Bachchan shared screen space in Naseeb, Shaan, Dostana, and Sinha admitted that the duo made for a “dynamic pair on screen” but added that if Bachchan felt that “Shatrughan Sinha bhari pad gaya (having Sinha around worked against him), it didn’t affect me.” The Kalicharan actor recalled that he dropped out of many films and even returned the signing amount as Amitabh took his place.

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However, they ironed out their differences later on. Sinha added later in his book that he and his wife Poonam Sinha visited Amitabh Bachchan when he had a near-fatal accident on the sets of Coolie. He also mentioned how he had a lovely relationship with Amitabh’s late parents Harivanshrai Bachchan and Teji Bachchan.

By the time Sinha launched his book in 2016, the past was in the past on one of the book launches, Bachchan was present to support Sinha.