THE PROBLEM WITH WRITING ON SALMAN

Among the four star biographies I have written -- all unauthorised or else I would have ended up writing a lot of goody goody fiction -- the one on Salman Khan did the worst. Barely one edition managed to move off the shelves as opposed to the one on Shah Rukh Khan that sold in places as remote as Nigeria and did around six-seven editions in English and Hindi. The criticism I had to confront regarding Salman was that he did not merit a place in the 'Hall of Fame', which is what the series was called. After all, he was known to be violent, he had been bad to all his girlfriends right from Sangeeta Bijlani to Somy Ali to even Aishwarya Rai. Yeah, even Aishwarya Rai. So, who the hell was I to write a book on Salman and pedestalise him alongside SRK, Aish and Hrithik?

But, there was a second view which I respect. Many film buffs who had read all the four books actually found a way to get hold of my email id, and tell me that my book on Salman was the best of the lot. I wouldn't say the best, because that would imply that the others were good which was not the case. The one on Hrithik was very average to be honest, not only because of a taxing deadline but since there was very little material on the guy who had just started out.

Why I think my book on Salman was the only good one was since it was an awfully tough challenge. The superstar's body of work was huge, and everything about his life was eventful including his childhood which was not particularly bliss-laden to say the least. His father Salim Akhtar was really hard on him. So much so that when the walls of his house had marks because Salman and younger brother Arbaaz had missed each other while trying out Kung Fu after watching a martial arts film, the dad thrashed them with a hockey stick till it broke.

Briefly, when I started out, there seemed to very little good about Salman's life which could have made for comforting reading. There was action, violence, injustice, two-three-four-timing. But as I began to explore the guy's life, I realised there were positives which few bothered to report, the reason being Salman had a particular image which was a hot seller. Salman as a man who tormented Aish --whether or not he did is a different story -- was sure to sell. But will a story that Salman was supporting 35 widows of Matheran sell? No, because none of them happened to be an Aish or even a Somy Ali. Besides, Salman seldom spoke about his personal life which only helped the media to get away with anything when it concerned his own life. He did not care. That was his biggest weakness.

When Salman's girlfriends hit out against the guy, he just kept shut, making vague statements like "Aishwarya is a good costar. It was great working with her in Hum Dil Chuke Sanam." He was the happiest guy on earth when Hrithik Roshan became a megastar after Kaho Na Pyaar Hai. He asked Somy to go ahead and sign a film with Suneil Shetty when the latter was a nobody. For years, he had been working for cancer patients while making sure that the media did not report about it. His bad side was made worse by the media's repeated assaults on the guy. But his good side was less than obscure because of his belief that if you did something good and spoke about it, what you did ceased to be good then and there.

Doing a balancing act with Salman's life was tough. Bloody tough. I would have been happy to pull that one off even if just one of my books had sold. And that too, because I had bought it.