For some reason the fate of all the legal cases against Salman Khan come down to who drove the car when the alleged crime was committed. In the hit-and-run case, he was acquitted by the court which held that he was not driving the vehicle when it ran over pavement dwellers. 
While the trial was on, towards the end, his driver had suddenly owned up to being behind the wheel. And now another driver is partly responsible for Salman being let off in yet another case. In 1998, during the shooting of Hum Saath-Saath Hain, Salman and a few others in the cast had allegedly gone hunting and shot down an endangered gazelle. Cases had been registered against them and in 2006, a lower court had held Salman guilty. It was based on the testimony of the driver who was said to be witness to the crime. 
But recently, in his appeal, the High Court acquitted Salman. The defence had pointed out that the driver had not been available for cross examination and painted his testimony as unreliable. The acquittal certainly comes as relief for Salman because almost in all his cases he is now technically innocent even though the government is going in appeal. 
What it means is that he does not have to knock on the court’s door for things like going out of the country. But soon after the verdict of acquittal, the driver who had disappeared was found by the media and he spoke of seeing Salman shoot the animal to a news channel and that he had been feeling threatened. 
Public opinion should have been swayed against Salman by this development but it has not because his popularity is at its peak right now. He seems to at the best point of his life. His legal issues are in control, his relationship with Iulia Vantur seems to be going strong and his movies are doing exceptionally well. 

The highest paid

Deepika Padukone has found firm ground in Hollywood, what with acting opposite Vin Diesel in the next edition of the spy thriller XXX. But that doesn’t mean she is saying goodbye to Bollywood anytime soon. After all, she is now the undisputed leading actress of Hindi films. A testament to her standing was evident recently when she signed on Padmavati, the next project of Sanjay Leela Bhansali. 
What has caught everyone’s attention is the fee that Deepika is said to have got for it, rumoured to be in the range of Rs11-12 crores. That is just under US$ 2 million. 
Traditionally, super high fees have been reserved for male superstars but in every era one actress commands the same premium. There was Sreedevi and Madhuri Dikshit in the 1980, 1990s and 2000s. And now Deepika seems to be in that sweet spot. 


The non-meeting


It can be hard to deal with a breakup, especially if you are stars belonging to the same industry. 
Just ask Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif who have to employ numerous tactics to ensure that they don’t run into each other. Recently, both of them were attending an awards function hosted by a leading fashion magazine. 
But, of course, they saw to it that both were not in the venue at the same time — Ranbir came first and left before Katrina made her entrance. The big mystery is how these non-encounters are organised if they are not on talking terms. 
Incidentally, at the same event, Ranbir spoke cryptically about how good it is to be in a relationship and then added that being single is also good!  

Word war

Naseeruddin Shah is not the kind of man you would expect to get into controversies. He is universally admired for his acting prowess and is an icon in Bollywood. But he has also lately been given to speaking his mind on different issues to do with Bollywood, the propensity increasing after the publishing of his autobiography two years ago. 
Shah started off by acting in arthouse movies, but by the 80s, he had started experimenting with normal Hindi entertainers because art movies had become disconnected from the audience and didn’t pay. 
He has subsequently been doing out and out commercial roles, sometimes bordering on the really inane. He is however unrepentant about it given that those are the ones that provide the bread and butter for an artiste. 
But that does not mean that he is not contemptuous about the very pond that he is swimming in. His acerbic remarks on the quality of Bollywood movies are now regular staple in media interviews. What he said in one such interview has again led to a raging discussion with angry voices railing against him. 
Shah had said that the decline of Bollywood started in the 1970s and that was also the time when Rajesh Khanna emerged as the reigning superstar. Shah seemed to blame Khanna’s taste for taking Bollywood away from intelligent movies. He called Khanna limited as an actor. The first person to angrily voice her protest was Khanna’s daughter Twinkle, wife of Akshay Kumar, who tweeted, ‘Sir if u can’t respect the living, respect the dead-mediocrity is attacking a man who can’t respond.’ 
Karan Johar added to it with his tweet, ‘I agree with you...due respect to seniority but this was in exceptionally bad taste and not becoming of a fraternity member.’ 
And then unexpectedly there an angry fusillade from Salim, scriptwriter and Salman Khan’s father. In a series of tweets, he wrote, ‘An actor passed my house and saw a big crowd waiting for Salman he called me up to say he has not seen anything like this before. I told him I have seen bigger crowds many times outside Rajesh Khanna’s house. He was the first and the last superstar of the millennium. Anyone calling him a mediocre actor should know that no one can reach these heights unless he has something extraordinary to offer. Frustration and bitterness are difficult to cure but carrying the same for such a long time is unheard of.’ 
Shah meanwhile apologised to those who had been offended and said that he had had no intention to attack Khanna. 


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