Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan. Photo Credit: Sawf NewsBy Vijainder K Thakur
July 23, 2008 (Sawf News) - There can be no smoke without a fire, unless Mumbai Mirror is reporting the smoke, like it did from the venue of Saif Ali Khan wedding with Kareena Kapoor!
Since Salman Khan's spat with Shah Rukh Khan at Katrina Kaif's birthday party on July 16 was reported by others besides Mumbai Mirror there must be some truth to it.
However, a surprising fact about the spat is that no journalist seems to have witnessed it, and there were a lot of them there!
Early morning on July 17, I chatted with a journalist who had just returned from the birthday bash and was filing his report. As soon as we started chatting he cheerily mentioned that the birthday bash was a rare event because the three Khans - Aamir, Salman, and Shah Rukh - had sat down together after a long time. Over the next 10 minutes we chatted about other things and he never mentioned there was a dustup between the Khans.
Another journalist returning from the party that we spoke to mentioned that Salman was in spirits with spirits at the party, but once again made no mention of a fight.
Another reason why we are convinced no journalist witnessed the fight is because almost every account of the aggravation that we have read has differed substantially in the sequence of events, all of which have been devoid of logic. More importantly, they have all relied on a 'source.'
Now here is the deal with 'sources' in Bollywood journalism. First and foremost, it is possible they do not exist! If they do, they are rarely first hand, and that is true even when a source is referred to as an eyewitness source! As long as a source claims to the journalist that someone he knows saw it, the journalist attributes the story to an eyewitness source, and gets away with it because due diligence and good faith belief are not terms tabloid editors in India take too seriously.
The truth is, stories that do not name their sources are often plants - by media, publicists, filmmakers or even stars!
So it is not surprising that one tabloid is reporting Shah Rukh made an uncharitable reference to Aishwarya Rai and the other is sure it was Salman who did so!
We don't know what transpired at the party on July 16 but we can safely assume something nasty did happen because publicists for Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Sanjay Dutt and Karan Johar have not refuted media reports that have referred to them.
What we do know is that the media has very little first hand knowledge about what transpired. What we suspect is that the media coverage is motivated.
The most unfortunate and intriguing part of the sordid story is the manner in which Aishwarya Rai's name has been dragged in while the actress is away on tour with her family, a tour that is close to the heart of the Bachchans.
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