Raees vs Kaabil: Why Hrithik Roshan's tweet to Shah Rukh Khan sounds fishy

It’s a great day for cinema lovers but not so much one for distributors of this week’s releases, Hrithik Roshan’s Kaabil and Shah Rukh Khan’s Raees.

Both films have released with much buzz and noise, on 25 January (read Firstpost’s reviews of the films here , and here ). So far, trade pundits have predicting multiple things about the films; but that hasn’t stopped audiences from watching the films in large numbers. Raees and Kaabil have been trending topics since Wednesday morning.

One thing is for sure, Hrithik sure does know how to take a clash with the best of hearts, or so it may seem. On wednesday morning, Roshan tweeted this to Shah Rukh Khan, who he calls his mentor:

Dear @iamsrk today as a mentor Im sure u will inspire me yet again with #Raaes and as a student I hope you are proud of me with #Kaabil.

— Hrithik Roshan (@iHrithik) January 25, 2017

At first glance, one is not surprised that Roshan tweeted to SRK when their films are clashing at the box office. He had done the same thing with Akshay Kumar, when their films, Mohenjo Daro and Rustom were clashing last year in August. However, while scrolling through Hrithik’s twitter timeline, another tweet came to our notice:

Hurt yes. But keeping the grace ..and the faith. #ImWithYouPapa https://t.co/B2hvTZya9S

— Hrithik Roshan (@iHrithik) January 25, 2017

He had linked to this DNA report , where Rakesh Roshan, the producer of Kaabil, has claimed that the distributors of his film had promised him 50-50 distribution for both Raees and Kaabil. However, when they woke up on their release day the ratio changed fotr 60-40. He claims the reason behind this is that the makers of Raees promised Baahubali 2 to the same distributors if they showed more of Raees.

If this allegation is true, then maybe it will escalate the way the clash between YRF’s Jab Tak Hai Jaan and Ajay Devgn’s Son of Sardaar of 2012, reached courts.

However, here’s a question. If Hrithik’s really “with his papa” like he claims in his hashtag, then why is he tweeted to Shah Rukh Khan? How is it that he’s able to call SRK his mentor, and he SRK’s student, while still standing against Raees?

This could be a case of gregarious generosity (or a case of “keeping the faith”, as Hrithik says), but we smell something fishy.