LATEST NEWS

If Shah Rukh Khan is the aw-shucks boy-next-door Archie Andrews of Bollywood and Aamir Khan is the smarty pants Jughead, Salman Khan has built his career on being the affably brawny Big Moose.

Shah Rukh might occasionally let off steam about being Muslim in India or at an American airport but Salman’s Muslim identity is safely restricted to that bumper Eid release. Aamir Khan is morphing into the nation’s carefully calibrated conscience keeper but Salman exists in a candy-coloured dreamworld where the Bajrangi is also Bhaijaan who flies kites with Narendra Modi while professing his love for Congress MP Priya Dutt. He has found his happy home in what is largely an opinion-free zone.

Who would have thought that Salman Khan of all people would land into hot water by tweeting himself into the middle of the Yakub Memon controversy? The barrage of late night tweets reads like a swaggering filmi script, full of boozy bravado, taunting the villain to step out and be a man:

"Brother is being hanged for tiger. Aarree whr is tiger?"

"Kidhar chupa hai tiger? Hey koi tiger nahi hai hai hai billi aur hum ek billi ko nahi pakad sakte" (Where is Tiger hiding. This is no tiger, just a cat and we can’t catch the cat).

"N no 1 Address him as tiger ever. Does not deserve that at all. Hang the ….. fill in the blanks."

Given Salman Khan’s own precarious position vis-à-vis the law, his piping up about the hanging of Yakub Memon is rather audacious. There’s biting irony in Salman Khan, of all people, asking anyone to step forward and face up to the consequences of their actions.