Advani stopped me quitting: Shatrughan Sinha

In his prime as a filmstar, Shatrughan Sinha was famously called “Shotgun” for being outspoken but it seems years spent in politics have taught him the fine art of making statements with ambiguity that convey the message but leave a lot to interpretation.

On a sunny Monday afternoon, the film star of yore and BJP MP from Patna, who has given enough hints in the recent past that he wasn’t happy with the treatment by the present leadership of the party, said that he had wanted to quit politics but was stopped from doing so by his mentor and guide L.K. Advani, though he said that he didn’t have a godfather whether in politics or in Bollywood.

“There was a time when I was inclined to leave politics. I was quite dejected and I went to see Advaniji, who is my guide and guru,” he said in a conversation with Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on his biography Anything but Khamosh on the last day of the Jaipur Literature Festival.

According to him, Mr Advani told him a quote made by Mahatma Gandhi in 1932. “Advaniji quoted Mahatma Gandhi that a person has to go through four phases when he wishes to do something. First, people will mock you, second they will ignore you followed by contempt and finally there will be oppression. But, if you are strong and stay firm on your path, you get respect and honour,” he said.

When asked which phase he was going through at the moment, Mr Sinha said, “Mai daman aur samman ke beech jhool raha hoon (I am swinging between oppression and honour).” He followed it up with an Urdu couplet: “Agar aabroo par aanch ho to takrana chahiye, agar zinda rahne ka shauk hai to zinda nazar bhi aana chahiye.”

About the ongoing debate on “intolerance”, the veteran actor said that comments by some members of the film fraternity were childish and made in haste.

Mr Sinha was candid enough to share many anecdotes, including his off-screen affairs and an embarrassing moment for his love of green chilli. He confessed that he cheated on his wife only once but was caught red-handed. “I cheated on my wife only once when I was caught so-called red-handed and my wife warned me not to ever repeat it... I have always maintained I am a one-woman man,” Sinha said.

Mr Sinha also recalled an embarrassing moment which had to be deleted from the biography. Fond of eating green chillis with his meals, he had once refused to board a flight because they were unable to arrange for green chillies.

“The airline told me that there were no green chillis. I told them that I can’t fly without it. It finally took them one hour to bring the chillis and then the flight took off. But I was so embarrassed when the flight captain came to me saying that it was perhaps the costliest green chilli in the world because of the delay it caused,” Mr Sinha recollected.