They film Bollywood stars for ‘likes’. Then the Tiger Shroff shooting went viral

That fan was Umesh Chauhan, a 35-year-old detergent seller who had come to film Shroff for his own followers.

The shooting brought into focus a largely overlooked feature of Mumbai’s celebrity culture. Ordinary fans who follow actors’ movements, wait outside their homes and hangouts, and film them for their own social media pages. Their reward is the chance to get close to an idol, gather followers and, perhaps, turn a hobby into a source of income.

The vlogger who was shot

For nearly 18 years, Chauhan has sold detergent door-to-door to support his family. For the past year-and-a-half, he has also been filming Bollywood celebrities, their homes and the fans who gather outside them. His Facebook bio sums up the pitch: “Aapko yahan famous place, Bollywood celebrities, aur travel vlog dekhne ko milenge (Here you will get to see famous places, Bollywood celebrities and travel vlogs)”.

On October 18, he and his friend Kisan Rajbhar, also a vlogger, had filmed outside Amitabh Bachchan’s home before heading to the Pushpa Narsee park on a tip-off that Shroff would be there. “I was standing very close to his car, near the seat where he sat, next to the driver. I was starstruck and excited to be able to shoot a video of him. He interacted with us briefly and asked how we were doing,” Chauhan told this newspaper.

“Suddenly, we heard a loud noise. I thought the car’s tyre had burst, but then I felt an intense pain in my chest,” he recalled. At first, he thought he was having a heart attack. “I kept asking for help, but I did not realise that I had been shot,” he said. He learnt what had happened only from doctors at Cooper Hospital.

“I started shouting, ‘Tiger sir has been shot.’ In the middle of all this, Umesh was shot,” said Rajbhar. Chauhan, since moved to KEM Hospital, had a bullet lodged in his chest wall, which doctors plan to remove on Wednesday.

Chauhan, who lives in Mankhurd with his six-year-old son and his wife, who is eight months pregnant, is the family’s sole earner. “I don’t know how long it will take for me to get back on my feet and start earning again,” he said.

A phone, a crowd and a chance to go viral

Sheikh began vlogging a little over two years ago, or “two Bakr-i-Eids ago”, as she puts it. “I am not educated, beti,” she told this newspaper. Her husband was a gambler and an alcoholic who spent every penny they had. “I raised four sons, but three of them got married and moved out. I now live in Malad with my youngest, who is yet to marry… I was losing myself when my sister suggested that I start filming.”

A few months ago, Sheikh, who had never worked earlier, bought a Rs 45,000 phone on EMI. Inspired by vloggers who gather outside Jalsa on Sundays to film Bachchan, she began going out by herself.

“I would shamelessly ask people I met there for likes and follows, and some would oblige,” she said. “Thankfully, I no longer have to ask people to follow me.” Since the shooting, her Instagram following has grown from roughly 2,000 to nearly 10,000.

After Jalsa, Pushpa Narsee Park is a common haunt, or the Jamnabai Narsee School playground, where Shroff, Abhishek Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor and Aparshakti Khurana are known to play football.

On October 18, Ashtami during Navratri, Sheikh was not sure she would go. Then she changed her mind. “Tiger beta is like a son to me, he is my favourite,” she said. A week earlier, she had filmed him walking up to fans, with only a wire fence between them, as she called him her “shona beta (darling boy)” and wished him a long life. “I wanted to go viral for a long time, I finally did,” she said.

The fan who kept recording

Shahrukh Shaikh, 29, calls himself a struggling actor. Theatre, auditions and a brief stint as an assistant director on a television show never turned into steady work. So he decided to “go behind the camera” and “document celebrities and their lives”. “I started vlogging to become famous,” said Shaikh, who lives with his parents and sister in a rented one-room-kitchen in Versova.

On October 18, his account, @bollywood_buzz70, had 700 followers. Five days later, it had 10,300, and his engagement had shot up to 50 million, according to a screenshot he shared with this newspaper.

A friend had called to say Shroff would be playing in Juhu, Shaikh recalled. After the match, he waited at the gate. “The minute his car exited, most people had stopped recording, but I stayed because I wanted to capture the entire exit. Soon, there was firing. I got scared, but my camera continued recording,” he said.

Half-an-hour later, still shaken, he was unsure whether to post it. “I watched the video, and I could clearly see the faces of these guys. I could see who fired how many rounds, whose guns got jammed, and how they sat behind another man on a bike and left. I was worried. What if I landed in some trouble?” he said. He posted his footage only after seeing a video put out by a fellow vlogger. “Within minutes, it went viral, and by morning, everybody had watched it.”

His clips of the attack, of Chauhan being put into an autorickshaw and of Shroff’s driver stepping out with blood on his hands have been viewed 27.2 million, 6 million and 11.7 million times respectively.

Shaikh has posted his interviews on his account and made several videos discussing the incident. He is thinking of working in front of the camera again, he said. “A lot of people recognise me now, and I think I also have a subject to talk about. I am going to continue making these videos,” he said.

It is the way to go, he added. “Videos work well online. If one wants to be successful on Instagram, they have to make videos. The goal now is to “tell and teach people the reality of lives” and “do well and earn a lot of money”.

Police have not approached him, he said. “But even if they do, I have decided to not be an eyewitness. I can’t embroil myself in this case, I am the only son of my family.”

Fans, not paps

“There is a boom in fan culture post COVID,” said Aniket Manjrekar, a paparazzo who works for veteran photographer Varinder Chawla. “It has especially peaked in the last two to three years, with fans also making reels of their favourite celebrities.”

Fans, he said, “try to befriend us and nag us for information, but we maintain a distance because whenever anything goes wrong, we are blamed for it”.

Paparazzi photograph actors outside restaurants or salons, and fans who follow them online work out the location and turn up. “It is the same for that football ground,” Manjrekar said. “We often take entry shots and then move on to the next assignment, but his fans come for the exit shot.”

What changes now?

Access was already tightening, Manjrekar said. A few weeks earlier, Salman Khan’s team had asked paparazzi to keep a certain distance, citing security concerns and the issue of fans. After the Shroff attack, the message was more direct: no one could bring anyone along, and only a handful of paparazzi would be allowed.

Police are investigating whether the attackers learnt of Shroff’s whereabouts through videos shared online. It is yet to be established whether any fan post played a role.

Sheikh is not sure whether she will go to Bachchan’s residence this Sunday. “We are hearing that the actor may not come. There are security concerns. We have also heard that even Salman may not go for the Bigg Boss shoot. So what do we do? We have decided to step out, and make a good vlog of our day.”