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Aishwarya strikes back

Furthermore the critics who have never really liked Aishwarya in her earlier movies now seem to be soft on her and are raving about her performance.

The good times seem to have just begun for Aishwarya as her future looks bright with a number of big budget films on her list. Her next film is Ram Gopal Varma’s Sarkaar Raj with hubby Abhishek and father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan. Recently she has also signed a Mani Ratnam film opposite Abhishek. On the international front she has the Pink Panther Returns and Ben Kingsley’s Taj Mahal.

There are rumours that Aishwarya has been signed by Shankar for his forthcoming film Robot opposite Rajnikant for a whooping sum of Rs. 6 Crores making Ash the most expensive actress in Bollywood, but some whispers say that Ash is now thinking of backing out. The reasons cited are that the film will take two years in the making and Ash wants to start a family by then.

Prior to her 2007 marriage with Abhishek, Ash’s career had almost ended in Bollywood, the reason being Ash’s focus on Hollywood projects. Says a filmmaker, “ After her appearance at the Cannes Film Festival and being on the cover of Time magazine, she had suddenly raised her price. No Hindi filmmaker wanted to touch her as a result she lost out on a lot of good projects.” Ash was thrown out of Ketan Mehta’s Mangal Pandey because she demanded one crore for an item number in the film. Ash’s friend turned foe Rani Mukherji picked up the item number and managed to bargain for a few scenes with the producer.

Adding salt to her wounds was newcomer Priyanka Chopra who replaced her in three films in 2006; Krrish, Bluffmaster and Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam. All this while Ash thought that her Hollywood career would take off. Unfortunately all the English films, The Mistress of Spices, Bride And Prejudice and The Last Legion tanked.

It is then that she signed on J P Dutta’s Umrao Jaan, wherein began her romance with Abhishek Bachchan. Unfortunately Umrao Jaan became the biggest debacle of 2006 and Ash was heavily criticised but for the last time. Abhishek and Ash became a couple and were signed on by Mani Ratnam for his Guru, the film was a hit and the duo announced their engagement after the film premiered.

Post Ash’s 2007 marriage lady luck seems to be favouring Ash in a big way; she signed Pink Panther and Taj Mahal while her competitors Rani, Preity and Priyanka don’t have any major releases coming up this year. She took sweet revenge on Ketan Mehta by agreeing to work in his Jhansi Ki Rani and making him wait for a year only to reject the film because she supposedly doesn’t want to do anymore period films.

A trade source says, “Aishwarya is now a part of the Bachchan family and that has definitely changed the way people perceive her in the industry. Initially nobody wanted to touch her because she was Salman’s ex-girlfriend. Also everyone thought that she wasn’t interested in Bollywood. The Bachchans are one of the major players in Bollywood and all big filmmakers flock to them. Ramu had once said that he’d didn’t think Ash was a great actress but look at him now. He’s singing her praises.”

Chandrasekhar Swami, the Bachchan family’s astrologer in Bangalore had predicted before the marriage that Aishwarya and Abhishek were a perfect match, a source close to the Bachchan family however reveals, “the astrologer told them that post marriage Aishwarya would benefit but the same cannot be said about Abhishek!”