Those who are not his ardent fans must be seeing in Salman Khan’s present situation an instance of what is called as karma or divine justice. It was three years ago that he had been acquitted in a hit-and-run case in which his car had run over pavement dwellers. It had been alleged that Salman was drunk behind the wheels and if one takes the newspaper reports of those days, no-one seemed to have been in doubt about it. 
Yet after about 13 years, when public memory had faded under the slow grind of the judicial process, he was found to be not guilty. And even though he had been found guilty by a lower court in the case, he had not spent time in prison for it because the best lawyers in the country had used their legal brains to ensure immediate bail. It therefore, comes as something of a shock that in a case that involves the killing of two animals, he should have been sentenced to jail for five years. 
The punishment might look disproportionate but to those who felt that he was guilty of the hit-and-run crime, this is just him getting his just deserts. The film industry, wary about terming him innocent, have still been making statements supporting him. For example, Arjun Rampal tweeted, ‘The law takes its course. Can’t argue it. But at this point in time I just feel helpless and my heart goes out to @BeingSalmanKhan and his family. Reason, cause the last thing @BeingSalmanKhan is, is a criminal. I feel this is too harsh. I do hope he gets the relief he deserves.’ 
Meanwhile, the media was already questioning the special treatment that Salman was being given in jail. His bodyguard and friends like Preity Zinta were allowed to meet him inside and he was getting special food from outside. This was despite his status being that of a convicted criminal. Bollywood meanwhile, has hundreds of crores riding on him and that was an argument used by some filmmakers to rail against his sentence. But it is a fair certainty that no-one is going to come to any loss, at least for the time being. 
The case is going to go on appeal in the higher courts and meanwhile he will appeal and be on bail shooting his movies. This was what had happened with the hit-and-run case, too. It is, at the most, a temporary inconvenience to him until the final verdict in the higher courts whenever that happens.

Tiger-ish return

Tiger Shroff started with a bang in 2014 with a movie called Heropanti. Two years later he cemented his place in Bollywood with another hit, Baaghi. But then followed two average fares. He was also known more for his dancing skills in the beginning and people even made snide comments about him not being macho enough. His latest movie, Baaghi 2, has however put an end to all these whispers. The movie has raced away to become a superhit, easily crossing the Rs100 crore box office milestone. And what is more, he had worked so much on his body that he was all brawn and did justice to the out and out action movie. That is a big makeover for him. 
In an interview to a newspaper, he detailed how he had trained in a mix of martial arts and also took on a highly specialised diet for the Baaghi 2 look. What is interesting is that he has signed on the sequel of Student Of The Year and for that he is now losing weight, going on a diet which almost the opposite that he had for Baaghi 2. After the latest blockbuster, Tiger will now be at the top of the new generation of stars.

Producing trouble

John Abraham has landed in a controversy over his soon-to-be released movie Parmanu, whose plot is based on the nuclear tests that India did in the late 1990s. John, who is the main hero in the project, is also a producer. And it is in his position as the latter that there has been a bit of an issue with his co-producers. There is a war of words happening in the media even as the movie’s release date has been set for early May. The thrust of the issue is that the co-producers were said to be delaying payments and that led to John terminating their agreement and cutting them off from the project. He even decided to remove their names from the credits. They, on the other hand, are saying that they had paid most of the budget and had requested him to reduce a little the money they were putting in because the project cost was overcharged. How this atmosphere of accusations and counter accusations will impact the fortunes of the movie is yet to be seen. But, hopefully, a negotiated settlement will be arrived at because marketing a movie is key to its success nowadays and that usually needs a unified effort by all those behind the project.

Once scorned, twice shy 

In her long and distinguished career in Bollywood, an industry notorious for rumours and gossip, the only relationship that was adduced to Madhuri Dixit was with Sanjay Dutt in the early 1990s. They had acted together in a number of big hits like Saajan. And then Sanjay was arrested for illegal possession of arms and found himself in prison. Madhuri broke up with him, not wanting to get affected by the controversy. Sanjay apparently, had never forgiven her and had not had good words for her when he spoke off the record to film journalists. The past caught with them recently. Sridevi had been slated to do a movie produced by Karan Johar, but her sudden death had led to Madhuri being the replacement actress. The only problem was that Sanjay, too, reportedly had a role in that movie. He is rumoured to have then walked out of it. When he appeared for an event recently, the media had asked him whether there was any truth in all this. Instead of answering, Sanjay apparently stormed out of the place. It doesn’t seem to be let bygones be bygones with him. 


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