★ Decoding brand ‘Salman Khan’ !!!
Oct 5, 2012 | Prabha Hegde
Love him or hate him, but you just cannot escape his fans. ‘He’ is the do-er of impossible for your liftman, while the Chintu in your society is dancing away ‘his’ new whacky step! The college going Raju hangs his pictures in his room dreaming of a well chiseled body like ‘him’. We are talking about the rage that has been adding to the sound of clink-clank to happy producers’ pocket. We are talking about the evergreen Khan of Bollywood, Salman Khan!
The brat with his grounded values of Maine Pyaar Kiya has surely gone through various roles and added volume to his fan base. People remember him for giving them three hours of plain entertainment, but one can’t overlook the fact that it is Salman Khan’s off screen image that wins him audience love.
So while he sets new box office records with his ‘no grey matter, but purely glorified entertainment’ movies, we try to decode the Brand Salman!
Alag che!
While the whole of Bollywood tries to keep their private lives behind closed doors, Salman pretty much opens up his real life to his fans. What is that you don’t know about him? You know the women who have dated him. You also know how many of them ended up being just arm candies. You know he shot a deer and you know he took his modest car on ride over the footpath of Mumbai. You know he likes to ride his bicycle once in a while across Bandra and similarly likes riding the rick for his lady love. You know every detail of this star’s life and he doesn’t take an extra effort to hide it. Be it a cheeky show like ‘Aap ki Adaalat’ or a heart-to-heart chat show with Farah Khan, Salman Khan outshines his reel characters and touches a chord with the audiences with his real self.
Actors need to look good too:
Pretty much the whole of Bollywood had moustache-clad hairy actor tales and stars with leaner bodies than their female counterparts. While the actresses did their extra bit to look good and appealing, a certain high waist adorning actor’s cute face and another actor’s constant stammering K-K-K-K was all that the female fans had to die for. However, Salman gave the ladies a real taste of star presence as he went shirtless with his new found well-chiseled body. Moreover in 2004, the People Magazine ranked him at the seventh position in the Best Looking Man in the World list. A combination of good looks, a worked out physique and with that mesmerizing screen presence, Salman Khan made the women across India croon and raced their heartbeats to his off beat dancing style.
We are a family:
What can be more endearing for the Indian audience than a recluse, a sort of a bad boy who wears his love for his family up his sleeves. Salman lives up to the glorified perception of the ‘Indian’ son. He loves the family, is protective about them and at times even gets possessive in displaying his love for them. Moreover, he recently accepted the offer of hosting the reality show Bigg Boss only if it was made available at a prime-time slot or better known as the family-dinner time. He also asked the makers of the show to modify its content a bit so that it is apt for family viewing. As a mamma’s boy and the one who has lived upto that phrase for the media-made perception of him, Salman Khan is adorable for the Indian mothers and their sons. While for the ladies, a self-proclaimed bad boy with a side that encapsulates immense love and protectiveness for his dear ones is worth a Rs 170 ticket in a plush multiplex.
Being Human- Human being:
What reaches you even before news about Salman’s court cases, is his elaborated saga about philanthropy. His family swears by it, his Bollywood pals swear by it, his fans swear by it, the receivers of his generousity swear by it and even the media swears by it, that the muscled body has a heart of gold! And by launching an NGO called ‘Being Human’, he has just legitimized people’s belief in his ‘giving nature’.
He has been holding onto his pole position since the early nineties. Maybe he dwindled somewhere in the middle and played forgettable characters, but he is back with a bang! And this time, he is inching too close towards creating his own Rs 200 crore box office collection club.
His fan following remains intact and even the top brands have realised that. When one cola brand gave him the ‘thumbs down’ for his court cases, the competitor brand brought him on board and reversed their sales figures and fate in the Indian market.
And for all the box-office records he breaks he has been named as the highest tax payer in Bollywood. For the quarter ended September 2012, Salman paid advance tax of Rs 8 crore versus Rs 5 crore, in the same period last year.
Brand Salman Khan lives upto the glorified images that adorn our Friday mega screens. He is the living personification of Indian dreams and aspirations. He lives it with a bang and then modestly smiles at you for making him the star he is.
