At the Top: Entertainers of the Year Are

With December here, we take a look at the celebs who have had an unbreakable hold on the public's attention THIS YEAR - and Deepika Padukone and Salman Khan come out on top

Surely the stars of this year, in terms of captivating the public psyche, have proved to be Salman Khan and Deepika Padukone.

It should not come as a surprise to anyone really, because practically every breath they took made news, especially on social media. Just a line about them on Twitter or Facebook evokes responses of the yippee-aren't-they-absolutely-peachy kind. And hits on Internet movie portals escalate into six figures within a couple of hours. Any project that 50-year-old Salman Khan assents to, drives the film trade into a tizzy instantaneously.

It's another story altogether that the tradewallas - corporate financiers, producers and distributors - don't exactly break into cartwheels over the announcement of the female lead in any project. Like it or not, it's still a male-dominated business and a heroine-centric project doesn't ipso facto guarantee a whopper hit. Okay, so a fistful of subjects focusing on women may have been majorly successful over time, but the market mantra insists that these are exceptions to the rule. C'est la showbiz.
Be that as it may, among today's A-lister heroines, Deepika Padukone, at the age of 29, is Bollywood's queen bee. This year, she notched up three films of variable quality: Shoojit Sircar's Piku, Imtiaz Ali's Tamasha and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Bajirao Mastani, each one of them affirming that she's come a long way since she kickstarted her career as a model, while also featuring in music videos for composer Himesh Reshammiya. Next, she made her debut in Hindi language cinema with Shah Rukh Khan in Om Shanti Om and then hopped, skipped and jumped through forgettable potboilers before she finally straightened herself out as an actress.
Initially, Deepika was lambasted for her sing-song dialogue delivery, faulty diction and stiff-as-starch body language. Even some of her directors would carp behind her back that, like most models-turned-actresses, she looked good but couldn't act. "She just has to open her mouth to speak and you'll want to head for the hills," an irate filmmaker once groused, justifiably.
The change-over came steadily, kicking off with Imtiaz Ali's Love Aaj Kal, followed by Homi Adajania's Cocktail and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Goliyon ki Raasleela: Ram- Leela. Hey - went the buzz - she can actually act. Presumably, she cleaned up her act with a combative spirit, inherited from her father, former badminton champ Prakash Padukone. Not to mention the help of numerous directors who were patient with her. Simultaneously, she became perfect grist for the gossip mills because of her incessantly-publicised liaisons with industrialist scion Siddharth Mallya and co-stars Ranbir Kapoor and Ranveer Singh.
Needless to say, it couldn't have been easy to come up trumps for a young woman who isn't from an established film family. On guard against hostile vibes, she actually struck me as a captive butterfly. I once spoke to her, in connection to a book of short stories as told to me by film personalities, and she was puzzled at the very thought that she could drudge out a story from her Bollywood experience. After much persuasion, she unwound and I had the story about how a celebrity can be subsumed by loneliness even when surrounded by a crowd of fawning admirers.
Eventually Deepika Padukone went on to admit that she had suffered from chronic bouts of depression, and set up Live Love Laugh, a foundation for mental health care, a first for a Bollywood actress.
Evidently, she has now untied the knots within herself, and has a pick of movies to choose from, including XXX: The Return of Xander Cage with Vin Diesel. If you ask me, I'd rather see her in Piku 2 than in an action flick, even if it is from Hollywood.
Meanwhile, the Salman Khan craze shows no signs of abating, what with his Bajrangi Bhaijaan topping the cash-earners of 2015. Moreover, the Kabir Khan-directed opus does have a strong sub-text, pleading for communal harmony and a rapprochement between India and Pakistan. A tad-over-the-top and implausible, especially during its post-intermission part, Bajrangi Bhaijaan was one of the better examples of mainstream entertainment this year. Add to that the financial success of Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, and the once-sidelined Salman continues his sprint ahead of both Shah Rukh and Aamir Khan, who're actors of superior calibre but can't match him, either because of his fan base or his muscle-rippling screen presence.
Like Deepika Padukone, Salman was dismissed as a non-actor for years till he was adored unconditionally in the Dabangg series, Kick, Bodyguard and Ready. The content of these films didn't count. Salman's goofy, don't-take-me-too-seriously attitude appears to have connected him permanently to audiences who just can't seem to get enough of him.
Ironically, he was once considered the black sheep in scriptwriter Salim Khan's family. His directors would fear his mood swings on the studio sets. Perhaps the spate of controversies and allegations has sparked a personality change. 'Being human' is his pitch even as serious charges - the court cases involving a hit-and run incident and the poaching of black bucks - formed a dark cloud over his sunshine career.
Linked with and then de-linked from a bevy of actresses - Sangeeta Bijlani, Somy Ali, Aishwarya Rai and Katrina Kaif - he has somehow avoided marriage. But then that's Salman bhaijaan for you: stupendously lucky in his profession but persistently unlucky in his private life.
Alas, that's the price that has to be paid sometimes for super-stardom.