ABHI-SALLU: FRIENDS?? -New Artcl

Salman Khan, the macho man of bollywood, once again surprised everyone when he went out of his way to be friends with ex-flame Aishwarya Rai's husband Abhishek Bachchan at Mehboob Studios.

Salman went to Abhishek Bachchan's vanity van in the studio and spent around thirty minutes with him inside. When Abhi and Sallubhai emerged out of van, they were looking happy and at peace with themselves, and there was no sign of any tension between the two. Abhishek escorted Salman Khan up to the venue of his shooting and then returned to his van.

Abhishek Bachchan had gone to Mehboob studios to shoot for a promotional campaign of his upcoming ambitious film 'Drona', while Salman Khan was already there shooting for his film 'Veer.' Sources say that when Sallubhai came to know of the presence of junior Bachchan, he straight headed to meet him, leaving behind the past history of acrimonious relationship between the two.

The buzz doing the rounds in the industry is that it could be a positive fall out of Shah Rukh Khan-Salman Khan spat at Katrina's birthday bash. Perhaps, Salman Khan wants to make a fresh start with Bachchans keeping in mind their not-so-pleasant relationship with Shah Rukh Khan. Apparently, Salman Khan is keeping his words that there would not be any compromise with SRK and hence cultivating people who are not on good terms with Badshah.

Some insiders say that another possible reason could be that Sallubhai wanted to clear the air about Aishwarya Rai, as the infamous spat between Sallu and SRK at Kat's party had flared up with some joke about Salman's ex-flame.

This is also being seen by bollywood watchers as a shrewd strategy on the part of Salman Khan to isolate Shah Rukh Khan in the industry by having good relations with big wig of bollywood. And this rapprochement with Abhishek may be a step in that direction by Salman. Earlier, too, Sallubhai had offered a film to Shirish Kunder for direction, knowing fully that Kunder had a fall out with SRK.

However, it must be conceded that this game of isolating the rival player had been started by SRK himself after the infamous spat. A recent example of this was the arrival of Shah Rukh Khan and company in Ritesh Sidhwani's birthday bash well on time to pre-empt the presence of Salman Khan's group. Sources say that Shah Rukh knew that Salman had good relations with Ritesh but would not come if he knew about the presence of SRK and that would isolate him in bollywood.

Perhaps sensing this effort on the part of warring Khans, Aamir Khan has been trying to maintain equal distance from both Salman and Shah Rukh Khan and that is why he did not attend Ritesh's party. But this master stroke of cultivating friendship with the Bachchans, who are undoubtedly the most powerful family of the tinsel town, by Salman Khan has certainly put pressure on Badshah to come up with some better idea to deal with his rivalry with macho Khan, what say??