IN THE EYE OF A STORM:  Salman Khan had to take back his tweet on the issue of Yakub Memon›s hanging.

Bajrangi Bhaijaan is turning out to be Salman Khan’s first movie that crosses Rs300 crore and it is being said that the question now is whether it will surpass the two biggest hits of Bollywood in money terms — Dhoom 3 and PK, both Aamir Khan starrers.
Such a blockbuster just adds to the aura of Salman’s invincible status. But in real life there are times when screen superheroes have to go by the old adage that discretion is the better part of valour.
That was how Salman recently did an about turn after taking a stand on a public issue. This was about the hanging of Yakub Memon, one of the accused in the Bombay serial bomb blasts of 1993. Memon was executed last week but in the days running up to it there was a clamour for mercy.
While the role of his brother Tiger Memon as the man who engineered the conspiracy is accepted by everyone, many think that Yakub did not have such a key role to merit execution, given that many others had been given only life sentences. And that Yakub was sentenced to death only because he was Tiger Memon’s brother.
There were also many others, including the government, who thought Yakub had been tried in court, his guilt established and therefore his sentencing was just. It was in such a charged atmosphere that Salman decided to come out with his opinion.
He insinuated that Yakub was the fall guy for Tiger by tweeting, ‘ Brother is being hanged for tiger. Aarrre Whr is tiger?’. He also asked Tiger to come out with some statement accepting blame so that Yakub could survive.
Immediately there was a torrent of outrage unleashed against him. Even his father Salim Khan said that Salman shouldn’t have said this. There were even rumours that the government would now try to get Salman’s bail cancelled in the case he has been convicted for.
Alarmed at the reaction, Salman soon tweeted that he was apologising unconditionally and retracting whatever he had said that had led to this misunderstanding. It would be interesting to imagine how his larger than life screen characters would have reacted to such a situation. Would they have backtracked with such alacrity? Of course no but then real life is not reel life!


Tripped by the name

It was also Twitter that got a few other celebrities into trouble over a second big news event — the death of former Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam. Kalam is known to be someone who did not allow any power or pelf get to his head despite his numerous achievements, which include spearheading India’s missile programme to writing books that have been an inspiration to millions.
Once news of his passing away became known, Bollywood as usual came out to express condolences and tributes. But some of them didn’t even seem to have done their basic homework. Like Farhan Akhtar who tweeted about his deep sadness ‘to hear about the demise of one of the most inspirational Indians of r time, former President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Azad. RIP’.
All fine except that he had got a key fact wrong, there was no ‘Azad’ in Kalam’s name. Then there was Anushka Sharma who got the name wrong twice. First she tweeted about her sorrow at the passing of ‘ABJ Kalam Azad’. Then when others pointed out her error, she tried to correct it and got that wrong too when she spelled his name as ‘APJ Kalam Azad’. The third time she finally got it correct. The question really is if they didn’t even know his name properly, what are the chances of them being acquainted with his work?


Trying to not imitate


The Bollywood remake of Drishyam, the superhit Malayalam movie, has just hit the screens. Already remakes in Tamil and Telugu have been blockbusters and it will soon be known whether it will do just as well with a Hindi audience.
Drishyam promises to be an interesting movie but the comparisons to the original are inevitable. In Tamil, many say Kamal Haasan, who played the lead, equalled the magic that Mohanlal wove in the Malayalam movie.
Ajay Devgn, who plays the lead character in Hindi, knew it would be difficult to replicate that level of performance. In media interviews, he spoke of how he had not had to think twice when the movie was offered to him.
But what he had not done, unusually for an actor working on a remake, was watch Drishyam in the original. This was because he knew that Mohanlal was such a great actor that Ajay would subconsciously end up copying him and that he had wanted to avoid that in order to give the character his identity.
Drishyam, incidentally, also has Tabu in a key role. She was last seen in a great role in Haider in 2014.


Notes of discord?

John Abraham’s marriage had been quite a feat of secrecy.  After a long relationship with Bipasha Basu that went on for years and their sudden break up, suddenly it became known that John was in a relationship with Priya Runchal, someone who was not a Bollywood person.
And then just as suddenly he tied the knot with Priya, an investment banker, and announced it on Twitter. It has been over a year and a half now but already there are rumours that things might not all be well in their relationship.
Media reports say that John is based in Mumbai and Priya abroad where she is doing higher studies leading to the strain that long distance puts on a relationship.
The couple was recently seen together at an event but it was a rare occasion. One report even said that they didn’t seem comfortable in each other’s presence there. We can never be too sure how much of this is being made up by the gossip mill but part of the fuel for such speculation is provided by John himself because of how extremely private he has kept this relationship.

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