From Shah Rukh Khan-Wankhede row to Kartik Aaryan Dharma drama: All real-life parallels in The Ba***ds of Bollywood

Aryan Khan's The Ba***ds of Bollywood is a satire on Hindi film industry, which fictionalises or dramatises several real-world controversies in its narrative.

Aryan Khan's directorial debut, The Ba***ds of Bollywood, is being praised for its brainrot humour and irreverent take on the Hindi film industry. The show, a satire on Bollywood, uses real-life incidents and blends them in a fictional setting, giving the audience a number of Easter eggs and inside jokes. Here are some of the most controversial and interesting ones:

Shah Rukh Khan plays himself in a cameo in son Aryan Khan's The Ba***ds of Bollywood.

Shah Rukh Khan's Wankhede row recreated

In 2012, Shah Rukh Khan was banned from Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium after he got into a fight with a security guard at the conclusion of an Indian Premier League game when the guard stopped him from entering the ground. The fight, with an angry SRK trying to punch a security personnel, was recreated by his son, Aryan Khan, in The Ba***ds of Bollywood when a security personnel stops him from entering the vanity van of Avtar Singh (played by Manoj Pahwa).

Kartik Aaryan and Dharma Productions' feud

The Ba***ds of Bollywood shows an outsider named Aasmaan Singh signing a Karan Johar's Dharma Productions film before being abruptly dropped from it. This occurred in real life in 2021 when Akartik Aryan was signed for Dostana 2 by Karan Johar before being removed from the film. Interestingly, the actor and filmmaker patched things up later, just like how it panned out in the show.

The three-film exclusive deal clause

In the show, Sodahwalla Productions, a fictitious production house, is known for offering actors three-film deal contracts during which they cannot work with other producers. Yash Raj Films was the first to introduce such exclusive three-film contracts in Hindi cinema, which were signed by many actors, including Anushka Sharma, Ranveer Singh, Vaani Kapoor, and Parineeti Chopra. The show, however, takes creative liberty with the enforcement of the contract.

The round-table drama

An episode of The Ba***ds of Bollywood sees a newcomers' round table in which Aasmaan shades star kid, Karishma Talvar (Sahher Bambba) on her privilege. Many online have felt that the scene was similar to how Siddhant Chaturvedi had highlighted the difference between insiders and outsiders in a round table with Ananya Panday in 2021.

Aryan Khan's potshots at himself

Director Aryan Khan did not spare himself either. In 2021, he had been arrested in a drugs case by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), but the charges were later dropped. In one scene, Aasmaan is sent to a lockup and a cop tells him people get 'more famous' after going in. Similarly, the end of episode 1 sees a character say to the screen: 'Say no to drugs!' Immediately after that, the frame cuts to the title card reading: 'Directed by Aryan Khan'. Social media users have praised Aryan for the very on-the-nose digs at himself.

NCB's war against drugs

Aryan even took a not-so-subtle dig at Sameer Wankhede, the NCB official who arrested him and was later shunted after an internal enquiry. The show features a narcotics officer who looks very much like Wankhede and is shown to pick up an actor, who is not in possession of any contraband. The comical depiction of the officer certainly raised eyebrows.

The underworld-Bollywood nexus

A track in The Ba***ds of Bollywood shows a Dubai-based gangster named Gafoor (Arshad Warsi) trying to invest in a film. There had been murmurs of Dawood Ibrahim funnelling his money into Bollywood in the 90s, which remained just a rumour until 2001. That year, film producer Bharat Shah was arrested for using mafia funds to finance his film, Chori Chori Chupke Chupke. The financier and producer was sentenced to a year in prison.

The Ba***ds of Bollywood is streaming on Netflix.