Desi Galaxy

While my friend Addy is comparing Shahrukh Khan with Aamir Khan. I would like to spend sometime on comparing Shahrukh Khan with Akshay Kumar. You will find lots of people saying that Akshay has given many more hit movies than Shahrukh Khan during last few years. Unfortunately, these Akshay lovers are terribly wrong. Shahrukh Khan still rules the box office.

In 2007, Shahrukh Khan had two major releases. Chak de India and Om Shanti Om. Both did amazingly well on the box office. Shahrukh was praised for his role as “Kabir Khan” in Chak de India by critics. Critics didn’t like him much in Om Shanti Om but movie’s hype and better marketing techniques made it a blockbuster. 2007 was also the luckiest year in Akshay Kumar’s career. He had four hit movies back to back. Namastey London, Heyy Babyy, Bhool Bhulaiyaa and Welcome. What I don’t like about all these four movies is that Akshay never moved away from his Hera Pheri style. There was no change in his acting and character development was extremely poor. His character looked the same in all these four movies. There was no versatility and nothing new in his acting.

In 2008 two Akshay Kumar movies were released. Singh is King and Tashaan. Tashaan was a huge disappointment at box office. Singh is King did fairly well and it was the third highest grosser in Bollywood. However, Shahrukh Khan had only one movie as the major release in 2008. Rab ne Bana di Jodi which was the highest grosser movie of 2008. Akshay Kumar’s latest movie Chandni Chowk to China Town has caused distress to the film makers who has signed him at very high prices. Chandni Chowk to Chinatown went flat on box office and it seems like no one is yet ready to buy the rights for his upcoming movies. Rohini Bhandari at the Business of Cinema suggests that producers may need to re-evaluate Akshay Kumar’s upcoming movies.

If you take TV shows, advertising campaign and International tours to measure the market value and popularity of the stars then Shahrukh Khan clearly beats Akshay Kumar.

Honestly, I don’t really care about who is more popular. I love these kind of comparisons because I think such healthy rivalry improves the quality of Hindi Cinema. This race to be the no. 1. Bollywood star benefits the audiences. So I would say that we the audiences of Hindi movies should encourage such debates. By the way I dont think that Aamir, Shahrukh, Akshay or Salman could ever beat the charisma and stardom of Hrithik Roshan. Who is, in my opinion, the best male performer in Bollywood right now.

Everywhere anywhere, Salman Khan vs Shahrukh Khan’s rivalry is all over the Bollywood. Only a few people know that Aamir and SRK have an undeclared fight between them. Remember Farha Khan’s Om Shanti Om in which SRK stole the show and while also providing tremendous career growth to Deepika Padukone. Well, the trend has been adapted by our cute little Aamir. Having the film focus on him in terms of acting, story even songs! He has stolen the whole show and yet giving tremendous career growth to the south Indian actress Asin.

Of course how can we forget the six pack, we all can see the competition and Aamir really won that one flawless. One thing which no one realizes is that the competition between these two Khans is from the start. Yes, competition is healthy but we are talking about a personalized competition and it clearly shows when we see Aamir claiming in an interview that King Khan was “scared” to work with him.

“Fight! how can I dare to fight with Shahrukh. He is a very good friend and I have a lot of respect and love for him”. Aamir told the media while promoting Ghajini in Delhi and when he was asked about his views over SRK’s claim over the biggest screen star, Aamir took an indirect dig at the actor by saying, “People who are No 1. don’t state the obvious. For me Amitabh Bachchan is No 1. Does he ever claim about it. Does Lata Mangeshkar claim about it? Superstars don’t need to say anything about their status.”

From the very start SRK and Aamir have never shared screen space and even now. It is heard that they will make an appearance in Zoya Akhtar’s directorial debut ‘Luck by chance’ and guess what? SRK and Aamir will show up individually. This clearly shows that neither of them want eachothers A** to be bigger than theirs.

When Aamir threw the challenge to SRK by claiming that he is no. 1 Shah Rukh did not dare say a word against him. Instead he went on to say, “Aamir is a dear friend and if he says that I’m second to him then it’s a great compliment to him….oops that was a genuine slip of tongue (amidst peals of laughter)…I mean it’s a great compliment to me. We are complete opposites. He is an intelligent, intellectual person, I’m more physical. I do things. He thinks them out. I know his jokes, he knows mine. He is 100% No. 1…I just said Kkkk Kiran…he really loves Kkkkk Kiran”. Of course Aamir truly did himself with physical stuff so boo to SRK.

It is also true that Aamir named his dog Shahrukh. People think that Aamir admires Shahrukh so much that he named his dog after him but little do they know that what the real reason behind that is After a thrashing up from SRK’s fans Aamir apologized and said that he did not mean to offend but he thought that it would be a compliment for SRK (sure it was ).

2008 is history now, lets up hope 2009 brings peace and prosperity to the world.

This was an eventful year for the Hindi Cinema. While there were some surprise hits, there were also some major box office disappointments. On this occasion, instead of presenting you our list, we would like to ask you to tell us about the best and the worst movies of 2008. Tell us which movie you liked the best and which movie disappointed you and caused a major headache. Please leave your replies in comments.