Shamin Desai and Khalid Siddiqui get into a scuffle!

It happened in the wee hours last Wednesday morning. Khalid Siddiqui and a female model had been busy shooting for a commercial under Shamin Desai's directorial baton for almost twenty-four hours on a road near Leelavati hospital.

Suddenly, onlookers were shocked to see an abuse-shouting Shamin running towards Khalid as if to hit him. Khalid started abusing him back and held out his hand mid-air. What really happened?

According to unit members, Khalid and Shamin have had problems since the beginning of the shoot. It all started with Shamin not being ready to pay Khalid's market price.

After a lot of haggling, Khalid got his price. Khalid, as per his norm, was expecting the cheque on the day of the shoot, but he wasn't given the cheque. He was also bristling because the ad was supposed to be bi-lingual and Shamin and his producer wife Priya didn't bother to tell him about it.

However, the last straw was when the shoot, which was supposed to be for 10-12 hours, stretched beyond 20 hours. So when Khalid raised an objection, Shamin lost his cool and went charging towards him.

When asked about the incident, Khalid chose to stay mum about the details of the disagreement. But he did say, "I have worked with the best of ad filmmakers. They know how to give models their due respect. I don't like it if I am not given basic respect. I am upset with the way I was treated on Shamin's sets. Yes, there was a bit of an unpleasant scene, but I would rather forget it."

Shamin Desai brushed off the entire incident. "Yes, I did have a disagreement with the model but these things happen all the time. We happened to have an argument in the middle of the road, because that's where we were shooting. There was just a verbal argument. There is nothing to it."

s_shubha@dnaindia.net