There were too many scandals in Mumbai and the stories from there were bolder and breezier. The two pages could not have been dissimilar in content and style. "How do you get all that gossip from Bombay (as Mumbai was then known)" Hrishikesh Mukherjee, the director (who was also a friend of Rajesh having directed him in three films including Anand) once asked me when he was visiting Chennai for an awards event.
But my name remained at the end of page 2. I was told the page was buying gossip from many sources, hence no one byline. A year or so after I started writing for Sunday, the Shirji byline disappeared. The Mumbai gossip page was credited to Shirji. "That should suit you fine, though you are anything but pious," he used to say. Akbar had given me the pen name 'Piousji' - he thought it sounded sexy. Sunday had gossip pages facing each other. My weekly gossip column was very tame compared to what people like Devi (Devyani Chaubal) were putting out in Mumbai publications, but there were many people in Mumbai who were curious about me. My stories on cinema, movie stars, politicians, and temples, churches and travel were mostly South-oriented and they ran mainly in the weekly publication Sunday, which was edited for over a decade by M J Akbar, and Filmfare, edited by Bikram Singh. Rajesh Khanna did not know me personally and I wondered whether he had read anything I'd written. When Rajesh heard that I was spending a few hours with Shabd, he sent the whiskey and suggested that I meet him "soon." Rajesh Khanna had brought him to Chennai to discuss a project or two in between the other businesses the star and producer had with the producers and directors in the city. While many critics had slammed Kumar for getting 'inspired' by Hollywood, his stock was rising throughout 1980 and it seemed that for some time everyone in town wanted him to write a film for them. The rape and revenge drama was 'inspired' by the Hollywood hit Lipstick. The film was produced and directed by B R Chopra and starred Zeenat Amman, Padmini Kolhapure in lead roles. The Johnny Walker Black Label was delivered to a hotel room in Chennai where I was meeting with writer Shabd Kumar, a former editor of Film Journal who had suddenly found fame with Insaf Ka Tarazu. Arthur J Pais remembers the late superstar and a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label that he found waiting in his Chennai hotel room, a gift from the late legend, as he prepared to meet a writer.
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