How does Akshay Kumar speak Marathi so fluently and comfortably, other actors struggling with the language for years in Bollywood want to know. The question was asked of the superstar yesterday when he began promotions of the Marathi film Chumbak that he presents and which releases on Friday. Akshay, who is a Punjabi from Delhi, charmingly grabs every opportunity to speak Marathi in public. And Chumbak’s promos have offered him several platforms.

The actor explained that when he was a struggler in the late 1980s in what was then Bombay, he used to travel everywhere by public transport. He was once standing in a crowded BEST bus. The conductor who kept pushing his way up and down the aisle through the commuters requested Akshay in Marathi, “Pudhe chala.” Which meant nothing to the young man from Delhi. This “Pudhe chala” happened a couple of times and then let to the inevitable argument between the irritated conducted and the puzzled commuter.

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When it was finally explained to Akshay by other commuters that what the bus conductor meant was “Aage chalo”, he angrily reacted, “Then why not say ‘Aage chalo’? What is this ‘Pudhe chala?’ What does ‘Pudhe’ mean?” One thing quickly led to another after that. And soon the conductor was abusing Akshay in Marathi. Which brought an immediate and heated exchange of bad words in Punjabi. The mara-maari escalated, and seeing that fevers were running high, the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road and the indignant and abusive Punjabi commuter was ordered to get out.

“I never forgot that lesson,” Akshay now says. And it made him determined to learn Marathi at any cost. Whether he took pains to study the language just because he was fascinated by its colourful bad words is not known. But the actor admits that speaking Marathi gets him considerable respect. “Especially with the police,” he adds, “Whenever I broke a signal and was stopped by a traffic cop, I humbly apologised in Marathi and the constable would be so pleased, he would let me off with just a stern warning.” Now we know.