ANUPAM KHER;
'LOYAL TO THE KING,MORE THAN KING' !
The BJP, just like the Congress, has honoured its own loyalists with Padma largesse. No surprises there. And Kher who sprang to full-throated defence of the government on the intolerance debate kicked off by Nayantara Sahgal has proved his loyalties many times over. He’s a brave man too sometimes venturing into the liberal den proving he has a skin thicker than pancake makeup.

At the Tata Literature Live! Festival in Mumbai, during a debate on freedom of speech in India, Kher decided to get personal and hit out at Shobhaa De as the one-time editor of a film magazine “which printed gossip about which film star slept with whom”. He alleged his freedom of expression was being curtailed because the debate was in English and chaired by a British journalist though no one had held a gun to his head and forced him to participate. And when the audience booed him, he turned on it and called it a “paid audience.”