Though he hates being a headline-maker, Salman Khan never ceases to be in the news. He is a simmering bundle of contradictions.

Though he hates being a headline-maker, Salman Khan never ceases to be in the news. He is a simmering bundle of contradictions. There’s the Salman who kept me awake till 3am with his rather strange antics when I met him for the first time. Then there’s the other Salman who went down from my hotel room at that unearthly hour to counsel Abhishek Bachchan on matters of the heart. At the end of the conversation he took off his Rolex wristwatch and gave it to Abhishek as a friendship band.

Extremely generous, Salman turns livid when provoked and pushed into a corner. He once narrated an incident to me — this was when we were on speaking terms — where at a crowded restaurant, some guys began heckling him by calling him unflattering names. Salman tried to ignore them as long as he could. Then he blew up.

That’s exactly what Salman is expected to do and most of the time he doesn’t disappoint his fans. I remember once I was at a restaurant with Salman (the same one where he had been heckled), when suddenly he began banging on the toilet door. Everyone in the restaurant just stopped eating, drinking, dancing, and started staring in anticipation of the inevitable fight.

Fortunately Zayed Khan emerged from behind the door. When he saw who was creating the ruckus, he embraced Salman like a long-lost buddy.

Salman is essentially a child who needs to be noticed constantly and so he unconsciously ends up doing things that attract attention. Most of the time he doesn’t realize where his attention-seeking antics take him. It could land him on Aishwarya Rai's doorstep (once, back when they were friends, he pounded his hands to a bloody pulp on her door when she refused to let him in).

Or it could be from the backseat of Kareena Kapoor’s car to the front seat. Like when he'd been sitting with my friends, director Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Kareena, in the backseat while I was seething, sitting in the front seat next to the driver. I tried to ignore Salman, but Salman’s ego couldn’t take that. He wanted to be noticed and by everyone. To my horror, he jumped from the back to the front seat, straight into my lap while a bad cover of "Neele neele ambar pe" played on the car’s stereo deck. Just because Salman loved the song, we had to hear it over and over again.

Salman has to get what he wants, he must go where he wants, even if a No Entry board stares him frostily in his chiseled face. He’ll also ignore every warning sign and head first to the place he’s most unwanted. More than a film actor Salman sees himself as a rock star. He loves to be on a stage while thousands of fans cheer from the audience. During those moments, his most intimate infantile fantasy—of the child who climbs the parapet to get Mom to come running—is fully realized.

At home he’s a wonderful son, not just to his biological mother but also to ‘Helen Aunty’. The Khans run a very liberal household. Islam, Hinduism and Christianity have a free passage. It’s a large open house where unexpected guests are always expected and and welcome. Unlike the two other Khan superstars who haven’t known proper parental guidance — Shah Rukh lost both his parents at a young age and Aamir doesn't see eye-to-eye with his father — Salman’s familial background is as normal as it gets, which is why the rebellious streak that shows up in his behaviour all the time seems like such a contradiction.

If he’s known to get physically aggressive with his directors (Satish Kaushik and Puneet Isaar, who worked on his last 2 films, will ouch, sorry vouch, for this), he’s also known to go out of his way to accommodate filmmakers. Shah Rukh Khan was supposed to play Mr Bachchan’s son in Ravi Chopra’s Baghban. When he backed out because of medical issues, Salman sportingly stepped in. He also played Amitabh Bachchan's son in Chopra’s Baabul.

Mr Bachchan is full of praise for Salman. “Salman is God’s child," he said. "Very misunderstood, but has a heart of gold. Like Sanju (Sanjay Dutt), Salman has a penchant for getting into trouble. But he means well, and is extremely kind-hearted.”

So who is the real Salman Khan?