An age old friendship

Senior journalist and author Bharathi S. Pradhan was one of the select few who got a chance to meet Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during his visit to India last week. Bharathi was in Delhi to attend the release of Rakesh Roshan’s biography. Once the launch was over, Shatrughan Sinha asked Bharathi, who is also his official biographer, to extend her visit for a very special tete-a-tete.

Turns out, Shatrughan was to meet Mr Sharif the two have been friends for 30 years now. And the veteran actor wanted Bharathi to accompany him. Recalling the event, she says, “It was a meeting between two politicians who are friends, and who look forward to bettering Indo-Pak ties. There was nothing filmi about it.”

What Bharathi was most astounded by was a box of kaju katlis that Shatrughan took for Mr Sharif. She shares another interesting anecdote: During the conversation, Mr Sharif, smartly dressed in a suit, had a speck of dirt on his shirt. “He was distracted until he could flick it off,” she says and adds that the leader was most forthcoming and felt that “Mr Sinha would make for a good parliamentarian”. “He even said that he wished Shatrughan Sinha were on his ‘team’,” Bharathi says. Shatrughan and Nawaz have met before as well. “When Shatrughan attended President Gen Zia-ul-Haq’s grandson’s wedding in Pakistan last year, he made it a point to meet Nawaz.” Bharathi says.

In Shatrughan’s biography, Bharathi will share more about his friendship with Nawaz. “A chapter on Shatrughan’s Pakistan-based friendships with quotes from Mr Sharif will add a new dimension to it,” she says. When asked why she chose Shatrughan as a subject, Bharathi says, “He has an interesting trajectory, since he is a politician and an actor. He is one of the most honest people to talk to.” The book is slated to release by the end of this year.