By Aditya Aamir
Salman Khan will have to stay at least one more night in the waiting room of Jodhpur Central… Jail! Bail decision reserved for Saturday, Bollywood is probably cursing the magistrate and that’s for sure. Salman fans and the film fraternity spent a sleepless night while “sources” said Qaidi No.106 dined on 5-Star fare in Barrack No.2 of the Jail, reluctant to shuck the jeans and shirt he wore to court that morning. The same sources said he was “restless” and could get a shuteye only around 1 am but was woken up by the siren at 6 am sharp. Breakfast was ‘sweet daliya’ and then with hope in heart the wait for bail. Alas.
Salman’s misguided friends argue that he has been put through the trauma of “waiting for 20 years” to be acquitted and look what he got at the end for ‘Being Human’ all these years, refusing to acknowledge that it was Salman’s battery of lawyers who prolonged 2 to 10 to 20 years. Remember Sunny Deol berating the “system” with his “Tareeq Par Tareeq Par Tareeq” rant in the film Damini that fetched Sunny the applause of frontbenchers in theatres across India. It is a defence ploy to drag the case till witnesses die or fall victim to selective amnesia. Unfortunately, for Salman, the Bishnois who took him to court are vegetarians and live healthier and longer for that.
And let’s admit it, Salman has been living his life like a king all the 20 years since he shot dead the two blackbucks. Except for the scare he got the couple of times he was convicted in other cases including the ‘rolling over pavement dwellers in a drunken state behind an SUV” case. Then, in that case, he got bail within 3 hours of his conviction.
Salman Khan is not a helpless blackbuck or a chinkara even if Bollywood believes he is “endangered”, thus Bollywood, too. All these 20 years, he has been one of the highest paid actors in the world and he has made tonnes of money, which he is not shy of flaunting around. Salman spent part of the last 20 years romancing Katrina Kaif and god only knows who else besides belting out box-office hits from Dabangg to Wanted to Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Tiger Zinda Hai.
Even now, locked behind bars, he is getting special treatment. Bollywood stars are being allowed in Bhaijaan’s presence like he is Emperor Jahangir, who as you know upheld the law of the land in his time in the Red Fort. On Friday, actor Priety Zinta met him in jail and his bodyguard Shera was in and out of jail like a pop-up cookie on the Net. What 20 years of trauma? BS!
And the two blackbucks – antelope not deer – he shot dead long gone but not forgotten. In a world dominated by blackbucks, ‘Being Human’ would have been given due consideration by Blackbucks, not shot in the tracks. Salman should when he gets out as he usually does change the high-falutting ‘Being Human’ to ‘Being Blackbuck’. The funniest remark made Thursday evening on a TV news talk show was from a Bollywood starlet: Make Salman Khan the ‘Brand Ambassador’ of the endangered blackbuck. What genius! How considerate.
The post Qaidi No 106 In Jodhpur Central’s Waiting Room appeared first on Newspack by India Press Agency.