Salman has a huge fan following wherever he goes, with or without his shirt on. When he returned to Punjab to complete the shooting schedule of Heroes, the buzz his arrival generated in the small village of Gharuan was phenomenal.
The location for the song Mannata was at the Akalgarh Sahib Gurudwara. The crew arrived at 5.30 am and by 8 am, word had spread like wild fire. When Salman arrived at the location, the crowd went berserk!
Director Samir Karnik recalls, "The children climbed the walls of the Gurudwara just to get a glimpse of him, the effect he had on the people was amazing. I have never seen anything like this before. Salman’s presence was larger than life. Somehow, the entire village and the surrounding villages got news of the shoot and we had an army of people pushing at the gates to get in and watch the shoot, We had to call in the police to handle the crowd and soon, they were out numbered too. It was sheer madness!"
But the best was yet to come. When Salman alighted from the vanity van dressed as a Sikh man, complete with the turban and the beard, the people greeted him saying "satsriakal praji" as he walked by and he would greet them back in character with the Punjabi accent.
Samir says, "That is the power of his performance, people would ask the crew, ‘Who is this new actor?’ and on hearing that it was Salman, the look in their eyes was priceless. However, Salman did not restrict his role to just the look of his character. He ensured that the entire cast and crew abided with the basic rules of the Sikh faith, which included not smoking and that meant no cigarette packets were carried on location."
We can only hope that the cinema halls will see the same mad rush with the release of the film Heroes.
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