Aishu-SRK: Ulterior Motive?

Badshah Shah Rukh Khan's house party at Mannat on Wednesday night was one rocking affair as B-Towners turned out in full attendance. And while present was the usual coterie of friends, what really caught everyone off guard was the presence of Abhishek Bachchan and wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

While there's never been any open animosity between the Khan and the Bachchans, the two have apparently not been on friendly ground either. The ties had soured especially after Shah Rukh was left out of the guest list of the couple's wedding four years back. So, when the Bachchan couple drove in at around 3 am, there was a flurry of excited murmurs even amongst the guests present.

According to sources, the two stayed on for close to one-and-a-half hours, leaving at around 4.30, with good friend Goldie Behl. According to reports, Ash herself had a fall-out with SRK when apparently she was replaced by Rani Mukerji in Chalte Chalte, after her then boyfriend Salman Khan had a brawl with Shah Rukh on the sets of the film. The two have never worked together since and are known to have passed on projects that could star them together.But it seems the Khans and Bachchans finally seemed to have called it a truce.

An industry insider says that it was also the need of the hour and a smart thing to do irrespective of who'd extended the olive branch first. "Aishwarya had limited her choices of being paired against most top stars by alienating herself from most of them. Salman was out of question, and so was Aamir because of the common Salman connection. SRK too was out. But with SRK back in the picture, she has one more potential hero," the insider said. There's, however, buzz that the Bachchans attended the do only because it was also to celebrate filmmaker Karan Johar's birthday. In either case, wonder now whether the new dosti will give takkar to the other Khan camp.

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