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Aishwarya back in great form

Despite being run down by many within Bollywood, the Bachchan tag only seems to have revived Aishwarays Rai’s career

Being Mrs. Bachchan comes with a lot of fringe benefits and Aishwarya Bachchan is surely reveling in her new found name and making her detractors and critics cringe.

While her peers such as Rani Mukherjee and Preity Zinta are finding it tough to beat competition from younger actresses such as Katrina Kaif, Kareena Kapoor and Deepika Padukone, Ash has withstood the test of time and is still sought by major filmmakers.

Today Rani has just one film with YashRaj Films and Preity has a few films with small time filmmakers, whereas Ash is getting all the plum projects. Fresh from his recent hit Singh Is Kinng, producer-director Vipul Shah has ditched his favourite Katrina and signed Ash for his next action comedy Action Replay with Akshay Kumar. A source close to Vipul reveals, “Vipul wanted to sign Katrina but Twinkle has strictly warned Akshay to not work with Katrina. Akshay bonded well with the Bachchans on the Unforgettable Tour and it is then that Amitabh and Abhishek asked him to consider Ash for one of his films!’

Even her friend turned foe Sanjay Leela Bhansali has patched up with her. Bhansali had a fall out with Ash after she refused to do Bajirao Mastani opposite Salman Khan. Reportedly Bhansali has now replaced Salman with Hrithik to appease Aishwarya who has now given a green signal to the project. Ash has also signed films with Vishal Bharadwaj and Farhan Akhtar.

Her list of films doesn’t end here; she still has Mani Ratnam’s Ravana and Rajeev Menon’s remake of Abhimaan opposite hubby Abhishek in her kitty. Presently she is working in Shankar’s Robot opposite Rajnikanth for which she has been paid a huge sum. Whoever said that a Bollywood actress’s career ends with marriage, hasn’t probably heard of Ash!

Just before her marriage, Ash’s career had already been written off; she had almost burnt all her bridges in the industry. Post her messy break-up with Salman; she was completely boycotted by the Salman camp. The fracas created by Salman on the sets of Shah Rukh’s home-production Chalte Chalte got her sacked from the film as well as from the Shah Rukh – Karan Johar camp. She then upset Aamir Khan by quoting too high a price for an item number in Mangal Pandey.

But thanks to the Bachchan goodwill in the industry, she has now gained an upper hand compared to the other actresses. After reportedly calling Aishwarya, “icy” and “expressionless” Ram Gopal Varma was apparently forced to sign her for Sarkar Raj, allegedly on the insistence of Amitabh and Abhishek.