Did Shashi Tharoor act in this film as a child artist? Congress MP clarifies

Twitter on Friday really believed it was Congress MP Shashi Tharoor in the still from a movie shared by film writer Vaibhav Vishal until fact-checkers and Shashi Tharoor himself clarified that there is only fun, no truth in the entire episode. Posting a black and white photo, Vaibhav Vishal claimed it is Shashi Tharoor as a child star. The Congress MP reacted to it and said he had tried to keep this a secret all along. This exchange dumbfounded Twitter as social media users exclaimed that Shashi Tharoor looks the same, including his hairstyle, jacket!

Vaibhav Vishal, however, did not conceal his humorous intent behind posting the picture as he said, “Today was just the right day to revisit this picture. Go, Shashi!”

“While Shashi Tharoor never was in Andaz Apna Apna, he did act in movies as a child star. His screen name was Master Gyaan, and he did 9 Hindi and Malayalam films. Attaching a still from Jailor with Geeta Baali,” Vaibhav wrote. To this, Shashi Tharoor wrote back saying, “And I had tried to keep it secret all along! Good sleuthing! Btw I am still known as Master Gyaan…”

Social media users looked up Jailor and found out that the movie was released in 1958, only two years after Shashi Tharoor was born. One social media user said the still is from Ferry, a 1954 movie and the child artist is Babu.

On Saturday, Shashi Tharoor too clarified that it was just a joke and that he was playing along for fun.

Meanwhile, this is not the first time that such a claim has surfaced on the Internet. A clip of Salman Khan and Aamir Khan-starrer Andaz Apna Apna often does the round claiming that the man sitting behind them in the bus scene is Shashi Tharoor. While there is no iota of truth in the claim, it is true that Shashi Tharoor is close to Salman Khan and was once approached for a role in a Salman Khan-starrer. “One amusing offer (came to me) for a bit part in a Salman Khan-starrer from a rather famous director. I can always cherish these moments. It was to play the role of an Indian foreign minister in a sequence and the advice I was given by a good friend was, ‘If you want to be the foreign minister, don’t play the foreign minister.’ I thought that made sense and I backed off,” Shashi Tharoor had said in an interview earlier.