Salman, Shah Rukh hugged; does that mean they patched up?

In a lesson of camaraderie that Putin and Obama can turn to for reference, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan made up. Not only that, they hugged each other. This is the reader’s cue to either fall off the bed with shock or sob over his/her morning coffee from the reassurance that all is great with this world and every word spoken in Hum Saath Saath Hai is true. [caption id=“attachment_974509” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Salman and Shah Rukh with MLA Baba Siddiqui. Sachin Gokhale/Firstpost[/caption] Now for the details. According to Mumbai Mirror, MLA, former minister, Baba Siddiqui threw an iftar party on Monday. And what is a politician’s iftar party without a few stars? So Siddiqui decided to rope in Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan at the party and officially end other iftar parties’ scramble to Page 3 stardom with one decisive swoop. In that he achieved two things: one, he got himself a picture that his grandchildren will show off to their grandchildren as a family heirloom. Two, he set fire to the imagination of Mumbai tabloids. The result is a headline like this: “Karan, Arjun hug and make up at the iftar party”. For a generation who knew Rakesh Roshan as the father of Hrithik Roshan, this is also a class in the classics Roshan senior made in his hey days which made stars out of Salman and Shah Rukh, and upgraded Bollywood’s feminist icon from Nirupa Roy to Rakhee. The Hindustan Times reports:

Suddenly, Salman got up from his seat and went to chat with the CM. The host took him around the table and Salman kept shaking hands and chatting with people till he reached SRK. Suddenly, it seemed time stood still. Both the stars turned towards each other and stood.

Naturally, Siddiqui was thrilled to bits about this ‘patch-up’ and said, “Hope this friendship stays. Maybe they wanted to do so, that’s why they did.” Since such developments in world peace shouldn’t be brushed aside as gossip, we decided to take a look at a video from the party. The video shows Shah Rukh Khan sitting at the dinner table and picking on his food. Salman Khan walks up to the table right behind him with an entourage of men and photographers. While the normal human instinct would be to turn and see what or who is causing so much noise a feet behind you, Shah Rukh Khan sticks to his superhero abilities of concentration and keeps eating with the single mindedness of a student writing the medical entrance test. Salman crosses him and greets a man just a seat away from Shah Rukh (as the former keeps eating without looking to his side), walks two steps back as people greet, chat and photographers buzz around. Finally, Siddiqui is shown nudging Shah Rukh who seems to wake up unwillingly from the self imposed reverie and stands up. All you can see is him turn to Salman, hug and move on to greeting the first person he sets his eye on next with the urgency of the man looking for a glass of water after having spilled ketchup on his trousers. Ditto for Salman Khan. Thus is created a template of friendship and patch-up that the Koreans can fall back upon for inspiration. For the uninitiated, or the ones who didn’t care before today, former best friends Salman and Shah Rukh fell out over some unknown issue during Katrina Kaif’s birthday party five years back. Bollywood gossip mills claimed that it was a fight over the TRPs of Salman’s Dus ka Dum and SRK’s Kya Aap Panchvi Paas Se Tez Hain? While you might be struggling to remember what these names represented back then, the duo didn’t suspect the ephemeral nature of their TV shows and hence fought for their honour. What do you, as readers, stand to gain from his patch-up? A Ra.One-meets-Dabangg? Watch video here: