The story between Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and their rivalry was going fine till Vivek Oberoi jumped into it, shot himself in the foot and retired hurt. Now, what is Vivek Oberoi doing here? We will answer this question here.

Before that, here’s a special video for all Salman Khan fans. This is the fiery Salman Khan in 1998. In this video he chided the press for peeking into his personal life. The circumstances that life has made him go through has mellowed down Salman Khan quite a bit and you don’t see him speaking like this now. We will tell you the funny Vivek Oberoi story after this video.

How Vivek Oberoi jumped in the middle of it all

The Chalte Chalte fiasco in 2002 and the incidents that it triggered had far-reaching consequences. Salman Khan had to come to terms with the fact that Aishwarya Rai had dumped him as she severed any tie that linked her with him. On the other hand, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan stopped talking to each other.

Chalte Chalte released in 2003 and couldn’t gather enough steam at the box-office. It just about managed to recover its cost. For the better part of that year, Salman struggled with the law as the hit-and-run controversy was constantly played up in the media. That year (2003) saw him in only one film titled Tere Naam. The film turned out to be a super-hit and some critics still regard it as one of his finest performances to date.

However, the star continued to pursue Aishwarya despite everything that had taken place in his life, say common friends. But by then, a lot had changed in her life; there was a new ‘friend’ in her life – Vivek Oberoi.

Aishwarya was seen in public events with Vivek. Even though she never admitted to a relationship with him, it was public knowledge that they were dating.

Here is a slide-show of Aishwarya and Vivek Oberoi snapped in public together. Take a look at their body languages. Look how Aishwarya appears all normal while Vivek Oberoi looks completely smitten. His close friends say that this was the period when Vivek Oberoi’s world began and ended with Aishwarya Rai. For Aishwarya, her body language said that she had other things to do in life rather than fall in love.

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All these pictures didn’t escape somebody’s attention… Mr Salman Khan. It was just a matter of time before Ash’s ex boyfriend clashed with the ‘rumoured’ new boyfriend… and how!

When a vivek oberoi decided to take on SALMAN KHAN

As I had mentioned earlier, while Salman was battling the fallout of the hit-and-run incident, the press was abuzz with sightings of Vivek Oberoi and Aishwarya Rai together at various events. Vivek would smile sheepishly when asked about Ash, hinting at a relationship between them. It was clear that he was completely smitten by Aishwarya and the fact that he is dating Salman’s ex girlfriend. I don’t blame him, even Johnny Lever in his position would have felt the same and behaved exactly in the same manner.

On the other hand, Aishwarya coldly maintained that she was just a good friend to him and there’s nothing more to that. But all these had Salman Khan fuming again. One day Salman finally dialed Vivek’s number.

The latter was attending another press conference when he told some journalists that there’s something that he wanted to share with the media. What followed was one of biggest blots in the history of Indian media as well as Bollywood. The actor surrounded by a group of journalists a la darbar style, exploded against Salman.

‘Salman said he will kill me’

In that hastily convened press conference inside his hotel room, Vivek behaved as Ash’s knight in shining armour and levelled all sorts of allegations against Salman. He said that Salman threatened to bash him up in public and kill him. Under the full glare of the media, Vivek went on saying how Salman called him 41 times to threaten him. Stating that he had the actress’s support, Vivek called Salman all kinds of names, including calling him an aging, frustrated and out of work actor. He openly challenged Salman to a duel. The press conference which appeared like a April Fool’s Day stunt soon became national news. Strangely, Salman refused to react to those insinuations and kept quiet.

Another story that did the rounds was that while Vivek was busy badmouthing Salman, one of his co-stars (who had an axe to grind with  Vivek) dialed Salman’s number clandestinely while Vivek was going on with his rants against Salman. Salman heard all that was being said about him from the other end. That’s what led to him to dial Vivek’s number to warn him to lay off.

Finally, only the two know what exactly transpired between them. Yes, I will now present the video of the infamous press conference 0f Vivek Oberoi. The press conference, if you see it now, really appears funny.

As expected, this act of foolishness blew up on Vivek’s face as Aishwarya was not happy the way he conducted himself. She started avoiding him and later indicated that she had no hand in the press conference conducted by Vivek.

A few months after the press conference, Vivek lost both the girl and a career that took off on such a promising note with Ram Gopal Varma’s Company. Vivek later admitted on a TV show hosted by Farah Khan that the press conference adversely affected his career and indirectly blamed Aishwarya for instigating him to conduct the press conference and all that happened to him later. Here is the clipping of the TV show.

Within a month of this incident, there will come the biggest blow on Salman Khan that will finally force him to severe all ties with Aishwarya. Also, the incident will ensure that he will completely withdraw from Aishwarya and set her free.

‘Salman was a nighmare’

Two days after Vivek hosted the press conference (3th April, 2003), Aishwarya got seriously injured while filming for the film, Khakee. The Maruti Gypsy which was being driven by a stunt-man called Raju Gaund, ran over her right ankle as he lost control of the wheel. Ash was first rushed to Kakatkar hospital in Nashik, but since the doctors were unable to relieve her pain, she was air-lifted by a helicopter to Mumbai’s Hinduja hospital. An X-ray revealed that she had suffered a hair-line fracture in her ankle. Her family and Vivek Oberoi rushed by her side.

Four days after the accident, Aishwarya stunned Bollywood by issuing a public statement saying that Salman had made her life hell. In the statement, she alleged that Salman had abused her physically, scarred her mentally and was still hounding her to star in a movie with him. She swore to never work with Salman again. She issued the statement from the hospital bed through her manager Hari Singh. It was most damning statement against any Bollywood hero.

For those interested, I have uploaded the text of the statement in a separate page. Just click on the word ‘statement‘.

Salman retreated into his shell following the statement; close friends state that after this incident he swore that he will never try to get in touch with her again. This was the time when he again started reaching out to his friends with whom he had fought before because of Aishwarya. Of course, one of the names was Shah Rukh Khan.

In the last post, we will talk about how he patched up with Shah Rukh Khan only to end up fighting again. For that, you will have to wait till the next post.

But what happened to Vivek Oberoi? Vivek Oberoi spent the next seven years saying sorry to Salman Khan who was in no mood to accept his apology. Vivek went to the extent of even holding his ears on stage in front of Salman Khan. Well, some would argue that it really takes guts to say sorry, others argue that Vivek killed his image by the way he went around town saying sorry to Salman Khan at every opportune moment. In the end, Vivek Oberoi made himself look like a naughty student who’s repenting after being punished by his teacher.

Before we end, here is a slide-show of images of Vivek Oberoi saying sorry to Salman in a public event. Salman is sitting in the front row while Vivek gestures to him from the stage under full glare of the media cameras.

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We will conclude the series in the next post.

Links to the earlier posts:

(a) Salman Khan versus Shah Rukh Khan: The real story

(b) Shah Rukh Khan versus Salman Khan: How it all started

(c) Shah Rukh Khan versus Salman: Their first public fight

Shortlink of the post -> http://wp.me/p3x1zT-cL