Salman Khan's absence and Shah Rukh Khan's return to IIFA raises eyebrows

The IIFA Awards ceremony was a stellar show of celebration of cinematic excellence, entertainment, and the best of Indian cinema coming together.

While the audience enjoyed the ceremony hosted by Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan along with Karan Johar and Vicky Kaushal, the absence of SRK’s contemporary Salman Khan left the audience scratching their heads.

This particularly raised eyebrows because Salman has been closely associated with IIFA for the past two years. His sudden disappearance from the most prestigious event of the Indian cinema didn’t sit well with many people.

A former actor and film critic, shared his opinion on social media, saying that the organisers of IIFA wanted SRK to host the ceremony given the landslide success of his last two releases Pathaan and Jawan.

SRK also is very much hands on when it comes to hosting an event of this scale courtesy his charm, the ability to think on his toes and handle tricky situations while on stage. Salman, on his part, is yet to deliver a blockbuster in the post-pandemic era with his last clean hit being Sultan which was released eight years ago.

However, things can turn around for Salman with his upcoming film Sikandar, just as it did for SRK. Prior to Pathaan and Jawan, SRK was absent from the silver screen for more than four years with his last release being the commercial and critical disaster Zero in the pre-pandemic era. But the star rose like a phoenix, single-handedly pulling the Bollywood out of its dull phase with two big hits.