Although it eventually became a landmark project in her career and put her on the map, working in actor-turned-director Satish Kaushik’s Tere Naam came with its fair share of ‘difficulties’ for actor Indira Krishnan. Featuring Salman Khan and Bhumika Chawla in the lead roles, Tere Naam was a hard-hitting tragedy where Indira played the elder sister of the female lead character portrayed by Bhumika.
Recently, she took a trip down memory lane and recalled the time Salman Khan pulled a prank on her after a scene in Tere Naam required her to slap the superstar. Indira revealed that he and his bodyguard took the practical joke so far that she started crying, thinking her career was over.
Mentioning that Salman, Sanjay Dutt and Suniel Shetty were the OG pranksters of that era, Indira observed during a recent conversation that she had worked with the first two. “They used to have prank sessions,” she told Galatta India. She then went on to recall Salman’s ‘threat’ to her before filming the slapping scene. “Aap thappad maarogi toh phir kuch bhi hosakta hai. Aap dekhlo iska phir kya honewala hai (If you slap me, then anything can happen. You see what is going to happen to her next),” she quoted the superstar as saying.
Indira revealed that even Salman’s bodyguard joined in on the prank and played along. He said, “Ma’am aapne kya kardiya? Press waale aagaye. Aap van mai jaake baith jaao (Ma’am, what have you done? The press people have come. You go and sit in the van).” Although she suspected at the back of her mind that it could be a prank, their performances were so convincing that she believed they were telling the truth. “When I looked outside, I could see media people there. Although it was common for reporters to come to film sets back then, it did not strike me at that time. They even said, ‘Ma’am, you will be banned from the industry. Kya kardiya aapne, thappad maar diya Bhai ko?!’ I started crying. Although they eventually revealed that it was a prank, they went on with it for about one hour.”
Dubbing Tere Naam as a “beautiful movie”, Indira Krishnan emphasised that Satish Kaushik was a brilliant actor-director. Indira will next be seen in Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Ramayana as Kausalya.
