Padmaavat, or what used to be Padmavati, finally has a release date. It will hit the screens on January 25. Pad Man, the Akshay Kumar movie, was also slated to have its release on the same day. That would have brought the two movies into direct confrontation. Granted, Akshay is a superstar but, on the other hand, Padmaavat has Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, three A-list stars. And it has a celebrity director in Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who by himself can also command an initial audience. On top of that is the blizzard of publicity that the movie has got in the last few months, something that no amount of money in the world could have bought the movie. Of course, given a choice, Bhansali would have rather not have got that publicity because of the agitation against the movie but now that it has happened he shouldn’t be complaining because, barring something nasty that would make the government to force the movie out of all the theatres, it is almost certain to be a bumper hit. 
So it is good news for everyone that Pad Man has been pushed back to February 9, giving both movies enough space in the market to reach their true potentials. 
But Bhansali’s litanies are not over yet. A number of states have decided that they won’t allow the screening of the movie. There are still court cases being filed to stop its release and the situation is still touch and go. Bhansali himself has been at pains to say that the movie has nothing derogatory against the Rajput community who are leading the agitation against the movie. He said that in fact the movie was his homage to the stories of the valour of the Rajputs. 

No to fairness

Sushant Singh Rathore recently refused to endorse a fairness cream and in the process gave up a whopping Rs15 crore fee that he was being offered. His reasoning was that celebrities need to be responsible about the kind of products that they are promoting. And fairness creams are based on the assumption that one skin colour is better than the other, which is not true. 
Interestingly, there is a new law under consideration in Parliament which makes celebrities more accountable about the products that they endorse. It is a much-needed change in mindset because most of them are okay with putting anything to their names so long as they get paid. 
Even when it comes to fairness creams, one of the male superstars to endorse it very early on was Shah Rukh Khan. But last year Abhay Deol started a campaign against fairness creams calling out those who promoted them. If Sushant’s decision is any indication then it seems to have worked. 
Meanwhile, Sushant and Shah Rukh have another link in common: their movies might clash later this year. Shah Rukh’s Zero and Sushant’s Kedarnath are both slated for the same Christmas-New Year holiday date but there are moves afoot to prevent it.

Old friends

Anurag Kashyap’s Mukkabaaz is not making any waves in the box office. It started off slow and meandered along without too many ripples. But it is a low budget movie and the reviews have been largely positive, so Anurag shouldn’t be too worried. He is giving interviews to promote the movie and in one of them, he spoke of his equation with Shah Rukh Khan. The two have never made a movie together and Anurag is really not the kind of director that Shah Rukh usually works with. 
But turns out Anurag has plans to do one together, he just does not know when. In one interaction with the media, he said that he is not going to leave Bollywood without making a movie with Shah Rukh. The two have known each other for a long time, with Shah Rukh being his senior in college. And even when Anurag was struggling, Shah Rukh would give him advise which he didn’t take because he wanted to get success his way. Anurag said that he had earlier once gone to Shah Rukh with a big project but it didn’t eventually happen – and that next time he would have such a script that Shah Rukh would find it impossible to say no. 
If a movie with both of them does get made, the probability of it becoming a blockbuster is somewhat uncertain at the moment since it has been a long time since either of them made any magic at the box office.

Maintaining distance 

The discomfort of meeting former lovers can extend over decades. In the early 2000s, Abhishek Bachchan and Karisma Kapoor had been in a relationship that was about to be consummated in marriage. And then suddenly the whole thing was called off and there was a break up. The reasons are not clear even now. Some rumours say Karisma wanted Abhishek to move out of the Bachchan household and he was unwilling. Others blame it on Karisma’s mother Babita who saw that Abhishek’s career was going nowhere and that the Bachchan family was also in financial distress then. 
What is certain is that after the break up, the two remained aloof from each other. Karisma had a failed marriage and is now in another relationship. Abhishek entered into a very stable family life with Aishwarya Rai. Recently, the past caught with them when they found themselves at a party thrown by Shah Rukh Khan to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Apparently, Abhishek and Aishwarya maintained a lengthy distance from Karisma so that their paths wouldn’t cross. They also left early. 


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