Star struck!

NAGPUR: For the Kesulkar family in the sleepy town of Bhandara, it was like a daydream. Actor Salman Khan, with muscles bulging out of a skin tight T-shirt, was actually standing contritely at the door of their modest house and apologising profusely. He was apparently mumbling something about accidentally hitting their daughter with his car.

“Initially, we weren’t sure that it was Salman Khan standing in our drawing room. We still aren’t,” says a dazed former army man Purushottam Kesalkar, who started a cement shop in the town after his retirement. “He said he was sorry.” As the Kesulkars launch into another narration of a story they have come to love repeating, visitors continue to pour into their house to hear the tale - which goes something like this:

Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel had organised a musical evening in Bhandara this Tuesday to mark the birth centenary of his father, late Manoharbhai Patel. Right from afternoon, a galaxy of Bollywood stars started streaming into the town to be part of the programme. 

Pranjali, the second daughter of Purushottam - a standard VII student of the local Jaycees Convent - was crossing a square at about 4 pm when a car hit her bicycle, throwing her to the ground.

As a mob gathered around her, to the disbelief of all present, the rear door of the car opened and Salman Khan alighted from the vehicle to help the 11-year-old girl get to her feet. For the next 20 minutes or so, Pranjali was in the actor’s company without initially realising who he was!

The actor asked his driver to take the girl to a hospital, but when she started crying, he brought her home, says Pranjali’s mother who is still quite worked up about her unexpected brush with stardom. “As she got off from the car, she was shouting: ‘Aai, aai, bagh Salman Khan ala ahe’ (Mother, Salman Khan has come!) It took us a while to realise that it was actually him!”

“He was apologetic about the incident”, says Purushottam. “And Pranjali too had forgotten her injury, we were all very excited,” he chuckles. A day after, Pranjali is obviously the centre of attraction of the entire town. “He did not say anything,” she maintains sheepishly. What about her injury? “It’s gone in the excitement,” she adds.

On his part, Salman, who’s had nightmarish memories of a similar incident in the past, must have missed a beat or two. Thankfully, this time, things were sorted out amicably. And as he danced in the evening on the stage with the rest of the stars, Pranjali and her parents clapped for him from the first row. They were Salman’s special invitees!