Shah Rukh Khan isn’t one to shy away from controversial topics. And on Day 1 of the HT Leadership Summit, the actor opened up to a rapt audience on his recently acquired bad boy image, his dropping Sourav Ganguly from the Kolkata Knight Riders, the infamous blowout with Salman Khan and his first kiss onscreen, at least.

Giving him company was his latest co-star, Katrina Kaif, who took all his ribbing and teasing sportingly. Talk veered to their Diwali release, Jab Tak Hain Jaan, and immediately to the kiss. When Vir Sanghvi, HT Media adviser, asked Khan if it was all for Katrina, he replied, “I had two rules — don’t kiss onscreen, don’t ride a horse onscreen... I’d rather ride a heroine and kiss a horse.

But seriously, kissing in a movie is so mechanical. There are hundreds of people on the set and everyone… realised my discomfort and made me comfortable.” For Katrina, it was a dream come true to work in a Yash Chopra film. “I saw Veer Zaara and said to myself that one day, I will be a heroine in a Yashraj film… And to be on the set was surreal. I also got a chance to work with SRK.”

SRK claimed that contrary to media reports, he had sobered with age. Referring to the altercation with staff at Mumbai's Wankhede stadium early this year, he said, "People tend to misbehave with celebrities. I am sorry for my behavior because my children said, 'why did you have to do that?' Otherwise, thoda maa, behen to sab Delhi boys use."

He also said he didn't regret dropping Ganguly from his IPL team in 2009. "Saurav was one of our country's best players but a 25-member team decided he wasn't working for us and I bore the brunt of it."

Always happy and exuberant onscreen, does SRK ever feel low and cry? "Losing is bad and then losing eight matches in South Africa was extremely difficult for me. The loss was seen not as a team's loss but my personal one. That is when I was very lonely and cried a lot," he replied.

Sanghvi asked Katrina if she cried too and she said she'd done a lot of it in the first two years of her joining films. "I was and still am sensitive that even when someone is looking normally at me and I feel something is off, I get upset. But now I have learnt to deal with it."

On the subject of the other Khan — Salman — Katrina said she'd love to do a film with both him and SRK. But SRK quickly cut in, explaining, "without being diplomatic", the equation between the two Khans. "He (Salman) and I sound like an oxymoron...Right now, we are at a stage where we disagree. And when and if we do patch up, it will not be because a producer wants us in a movie; it will be a very personal thing," he said.

Katrina — who worked with the two actors in the year's two biggest grossers, Jab Tak Hain Jaan and Ek Tha Tiger — pointed out that there was one thing the two have in common: "Both Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan don't let me talk."

When Sanghvi asked her which of the two Khans had the worst temper, she laughed, "Is this an interrogation?" and then went on to answer, "Neither. Both are strong, opinionated men as they should be. But sometimes the temper is avoidable."