At the time of going to print, a huge section of the industry
affirms that Ash's enhancing proximity with upcoming actor Vivek Oberoi could
be a lot more serious than it superficially seems. When Ash had gone to Cannes
to be a part of the jury for the film festival, she and Vivek were seen
together which led to wild speculations about the fact that the twosome were in
love: or having an affair at least. This happened mainly because Vivek's films
were not in the reckoning anyway, and there seemed to be very little logic as
to why he should have been there. But he was, they were spotted, and that was
big news.
In her world, what is private is public. We have said that
before. But speculations took on wings because a coincidence seemed to have
brought them together. Ash had broken off with Salman, and she had been single
for a while when Vivek and she met. Vivek had broken off with his long-term
girlfriend Gurpreet, and he was single as well. Single and ready to mingle: did
the tired cliche have any meaning and, if it did, was it applicable to two of
the singles within the industry?
The limelight has focused on the twosome so consistently
that the littlest of things have been reported: like the fact that Vivek went
out of his way and gifted a poodle to Ash. The plot thickened further when Rani
Mukherjee, the other name Vivek was being linked with, happened to lose a dear
cousin in Kolkata. The Week reported that not only did Vivek journey to see
Rani who was extremely low then, he also convinced Ash to come along.
Meanwhile, what did Ash do? The report carried in The Week
asserted that she named the poodle "Sunshine and reciprocated with flowers
on Valentine's Day: They were also spotted at a nightclub in Kolkata."
When asked to explain what was happening, Vivek came up with a sharp response:
"It I gift a puppy as a token of affection to Aishwarya, I am also
unafraid of openly saying that I love Rani. But there is nothing lusty about
that love."
Interesting indeed. And delightfully ambiguous too which
only led to a lot of hype about a relationship that, perhaps, was blooming in
relative obscurity. Sensing a potentially dynamic situation, soft drinks giant
Coke moved in for the kill and signed the duo for a Coke advertising campaign.
When that happened, Ash had already been endorsing Coke as a brand. But Vivek
made it to that slot for the first time, and this brought back memories of
Salman who had been endorsing Thums Up once upon a time till he was embroiled
in a controversy surrounding the killing of black bucks which is apparently why
the soft drinks company decided to substitute him with Akshay Kumar.
Back to Ash and Vivek. The Coke guys made an ad which was
really interesting: it demonstrated how love could be expressed through the
cell phone, the contemporary gadget used for communication that has changed our
lives so dramatically. While this ad was being showed on the television, not
many could help recollecting the press conference in which Vivek had blasted
Salman for making 41 calls on his mobile phone which had evoked all kinds of
reactions from within the media as well as the film industry and Salman's
family.
Ash was at the center of the polemical exchange - Salman
barely spoke about this alleged occurrence though - whereas the cell phone
suddenly seemed capable of doing different things to people at different points
of time. You could use it to abuse people, or make sure you communicated your
love with it. Like every thing else in life, it was a mixed blessing that the
viewer sat back and thought about.
Cut to just the hardcore reality. Thirty-year-old Ash.
Twenty-eight-year-old Vivek. Both wanted by the world of films, arid both free
from any sort of romantic bonding except, `may be, with each other. It was time
to report on how the twosome were conducting themselves during the shoot of
Kyon Ho Gaya Na?directed by newcomer Sameer Karnik. Stories were circulating
all over, but when the entertainment portal b4utu.com
caught up with Ash while she was shooting for the Nakshatra commercial later,
she came up with a matter-of-fact answer that trashed all allegations: "I
get along well with all my costars on the sets of Kyon... so why single out
Vivek? Wonder who sparked off these baseless stories?" Wagging tongues,
roving eyes, eavesdropping ears ...briefly, one could have said that she, as
usual, was under public gaze no matter what she did, where she went, whom she
met.
Stories about how she and Vivek got along - never mind her
denial -,spread like a wildfire, and there were even rumours Ash and her
co-star spent so much time together while Kyon... was being shot that they
reached for the shoots really late on occasions. Then happened 'that' story
which, perhaps, many were waiting for. The Karnik film required a lip-to-lip
kiss between the two actors, but nobody could have said for sure that Ash would
agree to it. Why speculations about her near-inevitable refusal arose were
since she had, and not long ago, refused to kiss costar Chandrachur Singh in
Josh.
Then came the time for the actual shoot. Would Ash kiss
Vivek? It was said she did, and that triggered off a, million stories as usual.
People could not help wondering. why she had relented in the first place, and
this was simply because of the josh episode which was too recent by any
standards to be forgotten by even the average human being who kept a track of what
was going on in the world of cinema. A few web sites suddenly discovered a new
way of telling the obvious. They asserted that Ash and Vivek had given several
retakes before the director. finally okayed the shot: as if to suggest that the
whole business of giving retakes was a novelty in the. business of big screen
entertainment!
Then happened what was possibly the second most reported
accident in the history of Bollywood. No marks for guessing the first one: it
had to be the one in which Amitabh Bachchan hurt himself badly while shooting
for Manmohan. Desai's Coolie years ago. The accident turned a small-time actor
named Puneet Issar into one of the most hated names in the country, and mainly
because his punch appeared to have initiated all the troubles. While
Bollywood's biggest megastar ever seesawed between life and death, the entire
nation prayed for his wellbeing that led to a miraculous recovery in the long
run.
Compared to what had happened to Bachchan then, Ash's
accident in the sets of Ilhakee was minor. To be honest, less than minor. While
shooting for the film at Trimbakeshwar, which is about 25 kilometers away from
Nashik in Maharashtra, Ash sustained a minor fracture on the little toe of her
left foot and had abrasions on her elbow and back when a jeep hit her
accidentally., The abrasions were the consequences of her falling on cactus
thorns nearby.
But there were huge stories, and one of them embarrassed her
costar Akshay Kumar who had to scream out loud that he did not 'save' her life
as some said he had. As the actor told rediff.com: "Let me clarify. I did
not 'save' Aishwarya Rai's life. That sounds very dramatic. I just happened to
be there when she was in a distressed situation. So I did the most logical
thing: I drove her to a hospital. That is it. I would do the same for
anyone." Surely, he would, but then anybody else he might drive to a
hospital would not be Aishwarya Rai!
While the fiction factory activated itself as usual - there
were rumours that she was in a state of coma - the fact was that she was
admitted to Nashik's Jai Hospital where local anaesthesia was administered to
her after she was taken to the main operation theatre on the first floor. Just
to catch a glimpse of Ash who was brought into the hospital situated in Nashik's
Timbak Road, there was a huge crowd outside that also managed to see two of
their favourite idols, Amitabh Bachchan as well as Akshay.
The actress was airlifted from Nashik on a special chartered
flight organised by Bachchan and flown to Mumbai where Vivek Oberoi was waiting
for her at the airport. She was rushed to the Hinduja hospital where four cars
preceded the entry of her ambulance through the main entrance. The entry
happened in the presence of Sahara's boss Subrata Roy who had walked in with his
wife minutes before Ash's ambulance entered the precincts of the hospital.
Not surprisingly, controlling the crowd that had got to hear
about the accident and were waiting to see their favourite star took some
effort before the door of the vehicle was opened and anxious fans saw the sight
of Ash in a stretcher. Vivek Oberoi was spotted as well, and his sight revived
the question in the minds of many: that is, were they really serious about each
other, or was Vivek there just as any of her close friends might have, been?
Guesswork there was in plenty - and not all of it could be
accepted at its face value of course - when another tragedy occurred, and this
time in the life of her friend Vivek. While shooting for a Mani Ratnam film in
Kolkata, a motorbike ran over the leg of Vivek and ended up breaking two bones.
The shooting schedule got upset, which was obvious, and actress Kareena Kapoor
who costars- with Vivek in the Ratnam multi-starrer which also has Ajay Devgan
and Abhishek Bachchan told the India Abroad News Service: "This accident
happened hours before I reached Kolkata. There was absolute uncertainty when I
reached there."
Naturally, because one of the leading men was out of action
which wasn't what anybody could have been prepared for. Intense physiotherapy
was what the doctor ordered and, meanwhile, Ash flew down to Mumbai from London
to be able to spend just a couple of hours with Vivek. At that time, she was
shooting at a studio near Central London, and the terms in her contract with
the producers of Bride and Prejudice were such that finding time for Vivek was
really tough. But that she did, by which time her costar and friend had been
shifted out of the Intensive Care Unit, allowing her to catch up for lost time
in the best way possible.
The suspense continues to thicken as time goes on. Till
today, neither Vivek nor Ash has admitted to the possibility that a thick
romance between the two is on. It could be a romance of the sort the
entertainment world is so familiar with which is when two stars start seeing
each other although the official proclamation from both is that they are just
good friends. "Good friends", within inverted commas, which leads to
all kinds of gossip, rumour, fictionalised stories, and of course, factoids
that tend to get overlooked because they are eclipsed by the glare of
speculative literature.
While the mystery continues to intensify, there are people
who cannot help suggesting that Ash might not acknowledge her relationship with
Vivek and leave him in the lurch after some time: something which supporters of
Salman had accused her of doing when their relationship ended. The second
probability could be that, having come out of a relationship in which she
claimed to have burnt her fingers badly, Ash would take her time before.making
a statement of her feelings in public. Same for Vivek, since he and Gurpreet
parted ways after it seemed pretty clear that they were all set to get married
soon.
Something is brewing. There is a smell in the air. What is
the air smelling of? As of now, the odour is too vague, too distant, too
unclear. The clock is ticking away. Destiny is
engineering its own moves. For that moment when the truth shall be out in the
open; we must wait.
