Govind Namdev Recalls How Akshay Kumar Ended ‘VIP Culture’ on Oh My God! Sets

For decades, Govind Namdev watched Bollywood function on an unspoken rulebook where stars are at the top and everyone else in their place. The disparity is everywhere in vanity vans, in pay cheques, even in the lunch queue.

Speaking to The Lallantop, Namdev described it, “No, this is not how the industry functions. There is a major system of big and small stars… people function as per their status – in terms of salaries and treatment in the film industry. If someone gets paid more, that person will get a huge vanity van. Difference in food also exists on film sets. The stars have different foods, and others eat different food items.”

Which is why he was pleasantly surprised on the set of Oh My God! According to Namdev, that’s where Akshay Kumar stepped in and a decision made with director Umesh Shukla that everyone eats the same food. “There are people who have fresh perspective towards this… Good people like Akshay Kumar, during the shoot of Oh My God! The actor and the film’s director Umesh Shukla decided together that everyone should eat and drink the same thing. If someone doesn’t eat onion or garlic, then that’s a different case but there would be no VIP menu. The environment was something else at that time,” Namdev recalled.

Akshay’s intervention collapsed that distance between the star, spot boys, character actors and crew members, ensuring that the set belonged to all of them. Bollywood may run like this. But on that set, the leading rewrote the rulebook, starting with something fundamental.