It once used to be said about nautankis and nautankiwalis of stage and reel that the correct rule describing their relevance was simply to be limited to ‘paisa pheko tamasha dekho.’ That’s where the mainstream Indian public may need to end up placing Aishwarya Rai in retrospect ultimately. This in light of the news that actor Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai (currently in Guzarish with Hrithik Roshan) will reportedly patch up after a violent tamasha of allegations and counterallegations few years ago of these actors involving Aishwarya Rai getting assaulted by Salman Khan and getting kicked out of the film by Shahrukh Khan.Khan had also suggested Rai was manipulating professional platform using personal associations.
From commercial perspective, Khan’s decision to kick Rai out may have worked as Chalte Chalte fared alright at the box office with enough of support from Khan’s fans, faring just under the moderate budget hits of the year.So the new rumors possibly point to the basic, absurd nature of showbusiness or ‘nautanki’ as it is called by Hindi people, that Khan and Rai are reported to be soon be doing a middle-aged drama allegedly similar to title of a film Aishwarya Rai is doing with Abhishek Bachchan, who is currently playing the role of her real life husband. Go figure. Rai is reportedly looking to act next with Shahrukh Khan in Khan’s home production also titled Ra-One.Though some reports have had choreographer Rajiv Menon’s involvement as well.
But if materialized, a certain downcasting for the Khan-Rai casting now would be that Rai could be close to 40 and Shahrukh Khan 46/47 by the time such a film gets set to release.It will also likely release after her controversial, and by now already overbudget film Mani Ratnam’s Ravan costarring Abhishek Bachchan as it will go to floor in late 2010 and release likely in 2011 or 2012.But all the same, given that Rai had made some pretty serious charges at the time without filing suit, if the reports are true, the allegations and circumstances around Chalte Chalte and Rai’s eviction and claims about Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan may need to be reopened and reexamined from 2001-2003. Otherwise looking back they’ll have to get treated as one more nautanki by Aishwarya Rai.
