She had taken the focus out of the controversies surrounding his personal life and turned it to the charitable activities he was doing through his organisation Being Human. The agency managed his interviews, keeping a hawk eye to ensure that he didn’t say anything controversial and even if he did, it didn’t get any traction.
So why after such a successful partnership are they separating? Evidently because Salman’s family is going to handle his professional life from now on. That might be a bad idea because the objectivity that professionals bring is just not going to be possible with family members — for instance, the kind of scripts to choose for movies. Salman himself had admitted that earlier he used to take on movies as favours for people he knew but then decided to be firmly driven by quality which took his career to the stratosphere. Let’s hope it does not return to those days.
One smooth partnership
Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary last week. Abhishek put up a tweet, ‘And just like that.... It’s been 10 years! Thank you all for the wishes for Aishwarya and I. Lots of love.’ The couple along with their daughter also went to a temple to mark the day. They attracted a large crowd along with the media indicating that though their careers might be nowhere near what it was when they married, they are still one of the most successful ones at the personal level. It has been one of the most stable relationships in Bollywood beginning when both had come out of break-ups, Abhishek to Karishma Kapoor, Aishwarya to Vivek Oberoi and before that Salman Khan. And while Aishwarya’s career had remained at the top up to the time she decided to devote herself to becoming a mother, Abhishek’s had seen a steady decline until he was more or less a supporting actor. But their names have never been sullied by any scandal, which is saying a lot in Bollywood.
Abhay makes fair call
Abhay Deol, for long the intelligent man’s actor, showed that he also has a social conscience and, unlike most in Bollywood, doesn’t really mind calling a spade a spade. Recently, he took to Twitter to rail against fairness creams that promise to give people a whiter complexion. He argued that it was a racist product because it is based on the assumption that white is better than brown or black. What Abhay also did was call out those in the film world who had endorsed these products. He put up images of old fairness cream ads and one had Sonam in it. And there the story got a little confrontational. Sonam tweeted back to him saying that she had done the ad more than a decade ago when she hadn’t understood the ramifications. But then she put up an image of a fairness cream ad that had Esha Deol in it and asked Abhay about his thoughts on this, too. Esha is a cousin sister of Abhay. He said that this was wrong, too. But before the issue got more heated, Sonam deleted her tweets and called a peace of sorts. Meanwhile, Uday Chopra, too, got into the debate with a tweet saying that fairness creams weren’t racist and were like artificial hair colour. He got a lot of Twitteratis on his back mocking him.
Sonu sings a different tune
Sonu Nigam was once the most in-demand playback singer in Bollywood but then there arrived a new younger lot and he became an also-ran, another face in a crowd trying to stay afloat. Naturally, he has been out of the public eye for some time now. Last week however, he returned with a bang and it had nothing to do with his singing. Instead, it was his hearing that created a controversy following a tweet by him, ‘God bless everyone. I’m not a Muslim and I have to be woken up by the Azaan in the morning. When will this forced religiousness end in India’. He added that loudspeakers were not there when this tradition began and so why does he have to suffer the cacophony. He also said that even other religious places of worship like temples and gurdwaras shouldn’t be using speakers to disturb the silence of a locality.
It led to an instant furore all over thanks to the politically charged communal politics the country is going through. Those who are supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party lauded Sonu’s statement, while those on the other end of the spectrum accused him of being selective against one religion. They said that he was trying to curry favour with the government which is perceived by many to be anti-Muslim.
It is not clear whether Sonu did have any such ulterior motives but that he should be thought to have so is understandable because a number of Bollywood personalities have taken to a similar path earlier. The singer Abhijeet is known for using the foulest of tongues to this end and once even had a police case slapped against him. Predictably, he was in Sonu’s corner over this issue retweeting photos of them together that had been uploaded by his followers. Anupam Kher, another pro-government supporter, also praised Sonu for his stand. On the other hand, he got abuses from those who were against the government, with some accusing him of seeking to enter politics. Sonu however, has continued to maintain that what he said wasn’t against a religious practice but the use of loudspeakers. And that he thought it should be applied to all religions. If it was a publicity stunt, then it has been more successful than even he probably imagined with prime time news shows devoted to it. It might not do anything to help his career but if he is planning a political makeover then the ploy has worked.
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