In the popularity hustings between the three Khans, Shah Rukh is right now firmly third considering that he cannot even guarantee a blockbuster nowadays, as was clear with the fate of Fan, his last movie. The Indian audience is having somewhat of a mellow response to him. 
On the other hand there is a category of fans that never seem to get enough of Shah Rukh and they are the non-resident Indians, settled outside the country. He has ruled their hearts for decades and even now his movies easily outperform anyone else’s with them. The largest number of NRIs and the main overseas market for Shah Rukh is in the United States. It is therefore ironical how he gets treated by the security agencies whenever he goes to that country. 
Last week, as he was entering US from Los Angeles airport he was detained for a while for unexplained reasons. The world came to know about it when Shah Rukh tweeted, ‘I fully understand & respect security with the way the world is, but to be detained at US immigration every damn time really really sucks.’ And then he followed it up with a small joke, ‘The brighter side is while waiting caught some really nice Pokemons.’. 
The response by different government authorities was immediate. Nisha Biswal, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, US Department of State, tweeted apologising, presumably on behalf of her government, ‘Sorry for the hassle at the airport, @iamsrk - even American diplomats get pulled for extra screening!’ 
The Indian ambassador to the United States also tweeted an apology to him, ‘Sorry for the trouble at LAX @iamsrk. We are working to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Your work inspires millions, including in the US.’ 
While Shah Rukh replied to both of them saying that he understood the need to maintain security in troubled times like these, it was a testing experience. If it had been a one-off thing, then it wouldn’t have mattered so much. But Shah Rukh gets repeatedly detained like this at US airports. It happened to him in 2009 and then in 2012. The reason is not too hard to guess. His name gets flagged by their database which confuses it with others who are a security threat and leads to the questioning. The Indian government had in the past even complained officially to the United States. But it seems to not have had much of an effect going by his present experience.    

Commercial sense

We know that Aamir Khan takes some very courageous decisions when selecting a movie. No one would do something like Taare Zameen Par, which dealt with childhood dyslexia and expect it to be big commercial winner. It was the movie, Lagaan, that started his run of blockbusters which has continued unfailingly for 15 years and even that movie was a very different fare. 
But what is not really highlighted is that Aamir also takes very calculated decisions to never lose his status as a commercial hero. So he will shuffle between offbeat movies and out and out entertainers like Ghajini. After two years, Aamir will now have a movie, Dangal, releasing this December and it is also a movie not in the typical Bollywood masala mould. 
On top of that it deals with wrestling as a theme, something which Salman Khan has just pulled off with Sultan and there could therefore be a chance of audience fatigue. 
All this is perhaps why when it became known what Aamir’s next project would be after Dangal, it was not surprising that it was a commercial fare. The movie is called Thug and is being produced by Yashraj Productions, who also made Dhoom 3 with Aamir. But what makes this more exciting for his fans is that Amitabh Bachchan will also said to be starring in it and, if true, this is the first time that the two will come together for a movie. All in all, Aamir has ensured a big probability of a blockbuster.


Followed unfollowed


After the success of Kabali, the legend of Rajnikanth continues unabated. The movie’s box collections would put many Bollywood superhits to shame. And it is not always that people find themselves followed on Twitter by Rajnikanth. That is what happened to Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan recently when they found that the southern superstar had followed them on the social networking site. But then, suddenly, soon after he also unfollowed both of them. The mystery was not hard to solve. 
Turns out that Rajnikanth is not very active on Twitter and his account had been hacked and it was the hackers who had made the handle follow Shah Rukh and Aamir’s handles. But then when Rajnikanth got control over his account again, he had reverted to unfollowing the two. A look at his Twitter handle shows that the only Bollywood actor he does follow is Amitabh Bachchan.


Surprise disclosure


Salman Khan and Kabir Khan first gave the hit movie Ek Tha Tiger and Kabir went on to become Salman’s favourite director. Last year, their movie Bajrangi Bhaijaan was the biggest blockbuster of the year. And now flush with the success of Sultan, Salman returns to do another Kabir movie as his next. Shooting is going on for it and right now the crew is in Ladakh.  
The movie has as its subject the war between India and China in 1962. Salman’s character is said to be in a romance with a Chinese woman. A Chinese actress is therefore playing a main character in a big budget Hindi film, something of a first for Bollywood. But this has led to an odd issue. The actress’s name is Zhu Zhu. In Bollywood everything has scope to be strategically milked for publicity and the presence of a Chinese actress would have provided fertile material. But no one seems to have told Zhu Zhu about how promotions are done here and she tweeted a photo with Salman announcing that she was part of Tubelight. 
It has apparently annoyed Salman, according to one gossip column. But what is done is done and the surprise is out. In any case, her tweet itself made for some news columns and so it was not wasted altogether.  


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