Meet Ahaan Panday's father Chikki Panday, once bailed Shah Rukh Khan out of prison, ended SRK-Salman's infamous fight

Chikki Panday, father of Saiyaara star Ahaan Panday, who has been friends with Shah Rukh Khan for three decades now.

Updated on: Jul 21, 2025, 17:53:47 IST

By Abhimanyu Mathur

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His debut with Saiyaara has created such a rage that everyone wants to know more about Ahaan Panday. The young actor has become an overnight star due to the success of the Mohit Suri film. His co-star Aneet Padda is the proverbial outsider, hailing from a family with no links to cinema, but Ahaan grew up in Mumbai with in a family that has seen actors, and also grew up with a few. His father, Aloke 'Chikki' Panday, is a businessman who counts several top Bollywood stars among his closest friends.

Ahaan Panday's father Chikki Panday is friends with both Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan.

Who is Chikki Panday?

Son of eminent surgeon Sharad Panday and brother of actor Chunky Panday, Chikki Panday is a businessman who was born in Bombay in 1966. While Chunky became a star in the late 80s and early 90s in Hindi films, Chikki became an entrepreneur. He was a member of the Steel Consumers Council, a group under the Ministry of Steel, which includes industry leaders. Chikki has also been a member of the Telephone Advisory Committees of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. He is the founder of Akshara Foundation of Arts & Learning, a non-profit that works towards providing education to underprivileged children.

Chikki Panday's Bollywood connect

Chikki has been a friend of actor-filmmaker Sohail Khan, Salman Khan's younger brother, and is close to the entire Khan family. The two families are so close that the pre-wedding festivities of Chikki's daughter, Alanna, were held at Sohail's house in Mumbai. Chikki's wife, model-turned-lifestyle coach Deanne Panday, has several high-profile clients, including Salman Khan, Preity Zinta, Lara Dutta, and Bipasha Basu. Salman has promoted her books and businesses time and again.

Chikki has also been friends with Shah Rukh Khan since the actor's early days in the film industry. In 1994, Shah Rukh was arrested for threatening a journalist who had written a magazine article defaming him. At this juncture, Chikki and actor Nana Patekar were the ones who bailed him out. Chikki's son, Ahaan, is also good friends with Shah Rukh's son, budding filmmaker Aryan Khan.

A young Chikki Panday with Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan.

Chikki was also instrumental in getting Salman and Shah Rukh to talk to each other again, quite famously after their tiff in 2008. The businessman got the two to sit next to each other at politician Baba Siddiqui's iftaar party in 2013. The politician then got the two to talk it out and bury the hatchet.

Despite being surrounded by people from showbiz, Chikki maintains a low profile, including a negligible social media footprint.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abhimanyu Mathur
Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well. A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age. He began his journey in the early days of digital journalism, later switching to the madness of print journalism. Work has led him to far off places like Japan and Jordan, as well as to the interiors of Haryana and the Indo-Pak border. He dabbled in city reporting in places like Meerut, Gurgaon, and Delhi, covered the Olympics and Cricket World Cups, before finding his calling in entertainment and lifestyle during the pandemic. A Rotten Tomatoes Certified Film Critic, he is equally at home covering stories on ground as he is interviewing celebrities and studios, and sometimes prefers to shepherd teams in delivering traffic through the day. Even as his role has evolved from reporter to supervisor over the years, his first love remains writing (and of late, talking on camera). With a good understanding of cinema and its trends, and a keen eye for detail, he continues to spark conversations around showbiz for readers around the world.Read More

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