Agencies

Karan Johar's office stonewalled him, Ayushmann Khurrana reveals in his book titled Cracking The Code: My Journey In Bollywood

The dust refuses to settle around the public anger that has erupted on social media after actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death, allegedly by suicide. Rumours that he was boycotted by the film industry's biggest production houses have been distilled into anger focused on one particular Bollywood insider - filmmaker Karan Johar. As supporting evidence, social media is circulating an excerpt from actor Ayushmann Khurrana's 2015 book on how he became an actor; in the excerpt, now viral, the AndhaDhun star relates his experience of trying to get an audition with Karan Johar's Dharma Productions in 2007 and failing. "We only work with stars," he was allegedly told by Mr Johar's office.

In his book titled Cracking The Code: My Journey In Bollywood, Ayushmann Khurrana reveals that he once interviewed Karan Johar while working as a radio jockey; later, he told Mr Johar about his acting ambition and asked for his number, which Mr Johar gave him. "Karan gave me the landline number to his office when I met him. I should have taken a hint there and then. But I was so excited! I even planned exactly when I would make the call: sometime around 11:30 am, so he'd be done with breakfast and available to talk," Mr Khurrana writes.