Salman Khan Turns 58: Reflecting on a Painful Year, Preparing for a Comeback

On this month's 27th, Salman Khan will turn 58, but it won't be the most comfortable birthday of his life. For Salman, it has been an incredibly painful year during what will go down in film history as the heyday of the Hindi box office.

It surpasses the lackluster reception to his Id release, Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi KiJaan (KKBKKJ), and the lackluster performance of Tiger 3 on Diwali. It is about having to watch as his competitors pass him by at breakneck speed and having to pragmatistically undergo a mental makeover.

While Salman and Shah Rukh Khan are posting mutual bhai-bhai backslaps in public, there is an underlying rivalry between them. Salman not only had to watch SRK score two hits this year, but he also had to put aside his long-standing biases. It's true that Salman gave Pathaan a boost during his brief role as Tiger, and he was astute enough to respond, "Let's see how my solo film KKBKKJ does," when some attempted to hold him accountable for the movie's success. If not, people will ask, "How are you taking credit for Shah Rukh's film's success when you couldn't make your own film run?"

This revealed Salman's reflective side—a man who gave himself advice when things didn't work out.

In addition to delivering two consecutive hits, SRK only engaged with his fans through #AskSRK sessions on X. He also unofficially distributed inflated box office figures through obedient voices in the film industry. He managed to avoid embarrassing himself in front of the media by demonstrating his ability to declare success without caving in to pressure.

However, when Tiger 3 failed to blow up the box office, Salman was forced to abandon his ban on speaking with the media and do a number of post-release interviews with Katrina Kaif in an attempt to breathe new life into a lifeless picture. However, a group of industry insiders could only take so much in order to disguise a lackluster movie as a box office success. In private, one had to look at the accounts books' bottom line and admit that the graph was dangerously sloping south.

Everyone else was in a joyous mood. Sunny Deol was the only reason Anil Sharma, who had followed up his big-budget failure Veer (2010), starring Salman, with a hit in 2001, succeeded once more. Ranbir Kapoor, Salman's arch rival, had a tremendously fun year. A moderate hit, Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar was like foreplay to Animal, the box office monster that was his climax.

Salman appears to have thought deeply about it and realized that he has been seriously screwing himself over by getting into ego fights with successful directors like Sanjay Leela Bhansali, thinking that his presence alone would be enough to make effete yes-men like Remo D'souza (Race 3) and Far-had Samji (director of KKKKKJ) deliver blockbusters. Actors (Vivek Oberoi, John Abraham, Shahid Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Ranbir, Ronit Roy), filmmakers (Kabir Khan, Ali Abbas Zafar, Bhansali), and musicians (Pritam, Himesh Reshammiya, Arijit Singh, Sonu Nigam) are among the people he had either degraded or given the cold shoulder to, all for different lengths of time and for different reasons.

Salman appears to have realized, in contrast to his public swagger, that he cannot continue to be at odds with so many people for the rest of his life. Pritam's quiet return to the fold after making it plain during Tubelight that he composed entire albums and disliked sharing credit with other composers is encouraging. He was benched for Race 3. Perhaps the most marketable aspect of Tiger 3 was Leke Prabhu ka naam, so the louder reconciliation with singer Arijit Singh was long overdue.

Thus, Id ho ya Diwali, the lessons learned during both holidays appear to have had a positive effect on the Khan who was left behind this year but will be making a comeback in the upcoming months. Inshallah, to borrow the one-word title from Bhansali's long-stalled Salman-starring film.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Press Time staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.