Bollywood is a fickle world and so are its relationships. However, some relationships garner more interest than the others. It is true that some celebrities relationships are created by the public relations juggernaut for promotional activities for a particular movie, but sometimes, just sometimes, the celebrities miss the thin line between fact and fiction and actually get involved romantically. There are many occasions where a particular celebrity came closer during a movie, and the public relation artists made a heyday of it, only to find out that the couple actually get married at the end of the day. Here are five of the most talked about link ups in Bollywood history.

1. Akshay Kumar and Raveena Tandon

Oh, to be a hunk and an actor in Bollywood in the nineties. Many consider the nineties to be the adolescent age of India, in terms of everything. In Bollywood, in the nineties, there as not too much of media coverage, stars had their privacy, and they did not have to jump like a monkey for the media and a movie. A movie would get released, if it worked, it worked, if it did not, it did not. So, there was little or no meaning in creating linkups just for a movie.

In this scenario, hearing about Akshay Kumar and Raveena Tandon being together in almost every celebrity rag and every ‘source’ definitely made us think twice about whether this rumor was true or was just, you know, a rumor. The celebrity rags back then were much bolder and clearer than the ones today. Some of them even went ahead to say that Akshay and Raveena (Ravs), as they called her back in the time, don’t ask us why, had married secretly in a temple or something.
All of that fizzled out when Akshay Kumar married Twinkle Khanna in a little ceremony. Many were surprised at the wedding, but the shock value was not like the one they had when Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh married.
However, Akshay Kumar wasn’t just linked up to Raveena Tandon. Back in the nineties he was linked up to a host of celebrities, and some even said that the sizzling mudbath he and Rekha had in Khiladiyon ka Khiladi was just an onscreen predecessor to many other things that happened off the camera. We wouldn’t know, we were in our respective schools and colleges at that time. And then, our’s is not to ask why, ours is just to observe and report, aye?

2. Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor

Saif Ali Khan is a colorful character. When he hit the film industry, he was considered to be quite thin and lanky to be the main hero. He almost looked like a woman in his initial movies, and he quickly got married to Amrita Singh, who was more than ten years his senior. Then, he began to have a kind of makeover, and that makeover ended with Race, where he was as macho as macho can be. He also had a very different look in Omkara, and he was brought into the race of the hottest guy in the room when he began dating Kareena Kapoor, the size zero female actor.

Now, the two have been a couple for a while, so much for a while that they have already started to come in advertisements, looking all lovey dovey and almost husband and wife – which a rumor tells us is all about to happen somewhere in 2012, and Saif Ali Khan is already bringing in the jewels and stuff. While the news of their wedding bells tonged just a few weeks ago, yesterday we heard the news of the sad demise of Tiger Ali Pataudi, Saif Ali Khan’s dad and Kareena Kapoor’s would be father-in-law, one of the most genuine gentlemen who had a kind of charm and elegance that could rarely be experienced in Bollywood. We now think that the upcoming marriage would at least be delayed by a few months. Our condolences go to the Saif and his family.

3. John Abraham and Bipasha Basu

Bipasha Basu has not had many link ups – well, at least not as many as her peers have had. When she began the career, she was linked up with John Abraham, who even worked with her in a couple of movies this seemed to go the Bhagyashree way, not in the manner of ‘I will only act with him’, but she did disappear from the social circuit.

She did not appear in as many advertisements as the others did, and even her movies were restricted to just a couple in a couple of years. However, all that changed with Bipasha Basu breaking up with John just a few months ago, and now we see her hounding all the advertisements. It is not even a few months of the breakup and she is right on top of the advertising bar.
It is interesting to note this fact about the John Abraham Bipasha Basu relationship. While her peers have been quite open about their relationships, they have got all the advertisements and movie offers, but somehow, Bipasha Basu was always left out, another glowing example that Bollywood, all said and done is a misogynist culture.

4. Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai

This one was the most talked about and most controversial relationship in Bollywood and we think this lies right there with some of the scandalous affairs in Hollywood. Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai came closer to each other on the sets of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam  and thinks went South from there. Salman Khan, apparently, started becoming possessive of Aishwarya Rai and started hounding her on the sets of movies. It is also said that the legendary clash between Salman and Shah Rukh happened because Salman once stormed into a set, drunk and started shouting at Aishwarya Rai, and Shah Rukh Khan, who was at an adjacent set, or was at the same set tried to broker peace, but things did not work out as planned.

Then, there was the very public quasi police case where Salman Khan ended up below Aishwarya Rai’s bedroom window and even banged at her door – which made her call the police. To date, Aishwarya Rai says that she broke up with a man because of the increasing mental and psychological torture. We do not know yet whether there was any physicality involved, but we remember that many years back, Salman Khan poured a drink over Somy Ali at a famous watering hole – the reason is still not known to us.

5. Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha

The baap of all link ups of Bollywood is here. There is no other link up that has been as controversial, as concrete and yet so superfluous. Amitabh Bahchan and Rekha were said to have come closer while they shot for movies like Sharabi, etc, but Amitabh married Jaya Bhaduri, his co star in Zanjeer and Sholay.

In the eighties and the nineties, the media was much more scared of planting stories than it is today, and therefore there was very less meat in the Amitabh Rekha scandal. However, Yash Chopra made a movie, Silsilay, when the affair was at its height, which once again stoked the rumor that Rekha and Amitabh were an item, and that they had already married secretly in some temple.
Even today, there are some wicked rumors about Amitabh and Rekha, and watch the footage of any awards events where Rekha makes a rare entry, and you will see that most of the cameras end up panning on Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan. When Aishwarya Rai starred as Umrao Jaan Ada in the movie Umrao Jaan, which was originally picturised on Rekha, the rumor mills started working in a frenzy, but there was no story to be had there too.