The Wildest Plot Twist of the Year If you had told anyone a couple of months ago that the guy who played Shaktimaan and the host of India’s Got Latent would be selling phones together, they would have laughed in your face. But here we are. It is June 2026, and reality is stranger than a comedy script.

Mukesh Khanna and Samay Raina just dropped a promotional video on Instagram.

The two men spent the better part of the spring taking nasty public shots at each other. Now they are sharing screen space to push the AI+ Nova Smartphone. It is a massive U-turn. People who followed their bitter fight earlier this year are still trying to figure out how this collaboration even happened.

A Rooftop Confrontation Turned Sales Pitch The advertisement itself leans heavily into their real-life friction.

It starts with the 28-year-old comedian talking on his phone while standing on a roof. He tells whoever is on the other line that his show is coming back and darkness does not last forever. Almost immediately, Khanna drops in.

He is dressed up in his signature superhero style. Raina looks startled. He asks the veteran actor what he is doing up there.

This is where the script pulls directly from their recent internet war.

Khanna stares him down and says he has come to straighten out his crooked tail. This is a direct callback to an insult he threw at the comic back in April. Raina tries to defuse the tension, suggesting they go downstairs because he is scared to be alone on a roof with the superhero. Khanna ignores the plea.

He reminds the younger man about the three police complaints filed against him recently.

He even threatens to paint his face black. He also takes a dig at his style of comedy, saying the jokes feel too American for an Indian audience. Then comes the pivot.

Right after trading these heavy insults, the two of them abruptly switch gears to talk about a mobile device. They start explaining the features of the AI+ Nova. Raina even manages to get a laugh out of the 68-year-old actor before signing off with a cheeky “Sorry, Shaktimaan.”

The Donkey Parade and the Crooked Tail To understand why this video is causing such a massive stir, you have to look back at what went down just two months ago.

Back in April, the first season of India’s Got Latent ran into serious trouble. A distasteful joke made by podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia on the platform triggered intense backlash. Several FIRs were filed. The show had to shut down temporarily.

During this chaos, Khanna became one of the loudest critics of the whole situation.

He took to social media and completely tore into the comedian. He posted a long rant comparing Raina to a dog’s tail. He wrote that you can keep a dog’s tail in a bottle for years, but the second you take it out, it curls right back.

He called the young creator a roasted creature who had been dragged through the mud by the whole country but still returned shamelessly. Khanna did not stop there. In various interviews, he suggested a brutal punishment.

He said the comic should be beaten, his face should be painted black, and he should be forced to ride a donkey through the streets while children throw eggs and tomatoes at him.

He was furious that his iconic character had been dragged into the mess. Raina did not stay quiet either. He addressed the drama in his stand-up special titled Still Alive. During the set, he mocked the older actor and actually used the phrase “Sorry Shaktimaan” as a punchline.

The bad blood seemed very real.

Khanna even told reporters that platforms should ban this kind of obscene content. He openly questioned the morals of the audience who actually sat there and laughed at it. He was baffled that a second season was even being planned.

The Internet Reacts to the U-Turn Fast forward to this weekend. All that moral outrage seems to have evaporated for a brand deal. When the video hit Instagram on June 22, the comment sections completely blew up.

Social media users were quick to point out the glaring hypocrisy.

Thousands of comments flooded the post calling out the veteran actor. Some users wrote that Shaktimaan had sold out for money. Others questioned how a man who lectured the entire country about cultural values and obscenity could suddenly do a commercial with the exact person he wanted paraded on a donkey. One user bluntly asked if it was about respect or revenue.

On the other side of the fence, a lot of people were busy praising the 28-year-old creator.

They called his business strategy genius. Turning your biggest public hater into a paid co-star is a rare move. Fans pointed out that the comic knows exactly how to manipulate the internet’s attention.

He took a massive legal battle and turned the main antagonist into a marketing tool. # Funding the Second Season This bizarre team-up did not happen in a vacuum. It perfectly timed with the launch of the second season of India’s Got Latent.

The new season just premiered on YouTube and Netflix India.

The first episode featured Bollywood actors Alia Bhatt and Sharvari promoting their upcoming movie Alpha. The response so far is mixed, with some fans noting the host seems a bit more guarded this time around. The real story is the sponsorship money behind the scenes. Advertisers are testing the waters again after the brand-safety debate of the first season.

The AI+ Nova Smartphone is heavily integrated into the new episodes as the powered-by sponsor.

Other brands like Flipkart Minutes and Avvatar protein are also woven right into the format. Throughout the first episode, the phone brand is treated as a running gag. At one point, fellow comic Aashish Solanki pokes fun at the host’s actual phone, prompting a scripted response about upgrading to the AI+ model.

The smartphone company is pushing its Indian-made narrative by using both the nostalgia of a 90s television icon and the edgy appeal of a modern comedy show. They secured the brand placement inside the actual episodes while using the viral Instagram ad to grab headlines on the outside.