UNFORGIVEN: Salman Khan continues to ignore Vivek Oberoi to this day.

For all of Salman Khan’s generosities and large heartedness there is one man he has refused to forgive and, if a recent encounter is anything to go by, then that is how it will continue.
In 2003, Salman’s relationship with Aishwarya Rai was over but he had still not come to terms with it. It was a difficult period for him with numerous legal and personal issues. Aishwarya meanwhile had entered into a relationship with Vivek Oberoi, then a star with a future.
And one night, in a drunken stupor, Salman called up Vivek and abused him. He did it multiple times throughout the night. It was not very shocking given Salman’s image and temperament at time. But given that they were both from film families, the normal aftermath of such an incident would have been for the parents to come together and sort out the issue.
Unfortunately, Vivek’s father Suresh Oberoi was out of town and it fell on the shoulders of the young man to decide on the next course of action and there it went all wrong. Vivek called a press conference and revealed all the things that Salman had said and then in melodramatic fashion said that he had trained in boxing and challenged Salman to fight him.
Of course, Salman didn’t respond or comment in public. His reaction since then has been to behave as if Vivek does not exist on planet earth. Long after, when the issue had died and the Aishwarya-Vivek relationship was also over, Vivek tried to make peace with Salman a number of times.
During one public function he even gestured in public that he was sorry but Salman just looked away blankly. At one talk show, when Farah Khan asked him about the incident, Vivek said that he had been blacklisted in Bollywood because of it.
And that many filmmakers dropped him from their projects. That is probably not the only reason he didn’t become a big star. He did do a lot of movies but they just flopped.
Recently, Salman once again gave an indication that he had not let bygones be bygones. When he went for a press conference at a studio in Mumbai, he came across a director who invited him over to the sets of his movie that was being shot nearby.
When Salman went there he was taken to the van where all the actors were stationed. He entered, saw Vivek also present, and reportedly immediately turned back. He conversed with the director and the other actors outside while Vivek remained cooped up inside.

A historical twist

Sanjay Leela Bhansali is getting a taste of how problematic it can be to do a movie on a historical figure in India. His Bajirao Mastani, which is under production and will be a big release in December, is based on the life of a historical ruler of the Marathas, Bajirao, and his romance with Mastani that led to his second marriage.
The promos of the movie are being aired now and a song clip has Deepika Padukone, who plays Mastani, dancing in one of those opulent sets that Bhansali is so known for, along with Priyanka Chopra, who plays the first wife of Bajirao.
But apparently this does not fit with historical facts according to a descendant of Bajirao. The media carried reports of this person in which it was said that the first wife was in fact arthritic and couldn’t have danced.
Also, Bhansali shows Mastani as a courtesan while she was actually a princess herself, according to the clarification. All this is really not important because the movie is only going to be loosely inspired. But should this issue get a political colour, then Bhansali’s problems will increase.
The grey look
Aamir Khan recently had a small accident and it was no doubt due to the exertions of getting into character that he is undergoing for Dangal, the movie he is currently shooting. In it, he plays a wrestler from rural Haryana who raises his daughters also to be wrestlers. He had been doing an action sequence and it was only after it got over that the crew realised that Aamir, instead of getting up, was in extreme pain.  He had injured his shoulder.
The shooting had to be stalled and he returned to Mumbai for treatment. As it turned out, Aamir clarified later that it was not a major injury but there were still friends and well-wishers coming to see him at home. One such troika was Karan Johar, Ranbir Kapoor and Ayan Mukerji. A photo was shot of them with Aamir and while the latter appears his cheery self, what was quite surprising to everyone was just how old Aamir was looking.
His beard was completely white while the hair was salt and pepper. And it is quite possible that this is his natural look. Some years back a reporter had actually asked Aamir whether he had grey hair and he had replied that it had started to grey in his 20s.

Wrong category

It is hard to be a has-been actress in Bollywood. From fans and media adulating and obsessing over you, there is suddenly just cursory interest.
This was what Preity Zinta and Rani Mukherji experienced recently. Rani is pregnant and Preity met up with her for the festival of Diwali.
She tweeted a selfie of them together which the media picked up but Preity was none too happy about the way it was reported because they were spoken of as belonging to the 1990s era.
Preity took to social networking again to make her annoyance known with these tweets: ‘Wonder why everyone in the media says that they miss Rani & My movies from the 90ties ? I only had Dil Se, Soldier(98) & Sanghursh (99)’ and ‘ Rani & Me worked in movies in 2000 & every 2 years after that. So technically I guess everyone has got the decade wrong. Isn’t that strange?’ It is not strange but such are the ways of Bollywood.

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