The man you see here, the one with the rugged face, tough shoulders and strong built is the one star who's played cop, killer, bodyguard, obsessive lover, military man, comic and singer and with each act we've felt his anger, anguish, cry and triumph.
No matter how many more movies he does or how many more awards he wins, he's already made it to the eternal Indian 'hall of fame'. He's appeared in over a hundred 'critically acclaimed' and 'not so critically acclaimed' movies, had some heart wrenching pitfalls, but he's always come out on top.
It's a well-known fact that he has over a thousand fans that collect under his apartment complex every evening. With their heads held high, they wait till Salman walks out, waves for a few short minutes and goes back in. It's also well-known that a recent movie had a song dedicated to Salman.
But you'll shake your head in disbelief when we tell you what's not well known is the fact that five Salman-loving friends have opened a Salman-themed restaurant in Mumbai!
Image Credits: facebook/AtBhaijaanz/photos_stream
The restaurant called 'Bhaijaanz' is the brain child of five friends - Rahul Kanal, Tabrez Shaikh, Sohail Siddique, Kursheed Khan and Zafar Sayed Yusuf who attended the same school as Salman.
"Everything in the restaurant is inspired by Salman, his life, his likes and dislikes" said Ravi Kanal, brother of one of the founders. After which he patiently took us through every inch of the restaurant and uncovered some really cool facts we think you're going to enjoy:
1. 'Bhaijaanz' was a small take away joint earlier and totally unrelated to this concept. The place next door was emptying out so they decided to create a restaurant after Salman and it was all conceptualized in under a month. They opened their doors only on March 9.
2. "Salman is the Hulk of the industry. He's a super hero and a super human being." So they got a graffiti artist and a painter to replicate the hulk, with Salman's face on it.
Image Credits: facebook/AtBhaijaanz/photos_stream
3. "We know Salman likes bikes and so if you see the chandeliers, you'll realise that they are made with recycled cycle material."
4. "We wanted to incorporate his blue bracelet so we got around 80 of them and put them in a table."
5. "To pay tribute to his movies we got 10 rupee notes with serial numbers that matched his movie release dates. We have 147 of them hanging on our walls."
Image Credits: facebook/AtBhaijaanz/photos_stream
6. "To decide what to do in the restaurant we took a step back and thought, what would Salman like? And we know he likes a Moroccan seating so that's exactly what we did."
7. "People go outside his house and click the balcony of his house Galaxy. So we decorated our balcony the exact same way. It looks exactly like Salman's."
8. "Our televisions in the restaurant only run Salman songs and nothing else."
If you thought that's as creative as it gets then you're wrong. What's happening inside the kitchen is equally exciting. These young men got on board Tabrez Sheikh, a su chef who worked at the Radison in London and from what we hear, he's done a wonderful job with the menu.
They've got Indian food because that's what Salman likes. But there's also Continental and Chinese. The names of the dished are a real riot - 'anda apna apna', 'ek garam chai ki pyali ho', 'dabang 1' which is a mutton dish and 'dabang 2' which is a chicken dish. 'Jai ho' is their vegetarian counterpart, 'most wanted' is there list of the most popular dishes and 'mera hi jalwa' are Salman's favourites.
It's been just three days since the restaurant opened its doors to the public, but the response has been phenomenal. In fact, from what Ravi tells us, a customer flew down yesterday just to try the restaurant after he saw a coverage of it on Zee News. The fact that a restaurant could create such a staggering reaction is amazing, and the owners hope Salman will be as flattered by it as his fans are.