Before Aishwarya Rai's marriage with Abhishek Bachchan in 2007, she shared screen space with his father Amitabh Bachchan in Rajkumar Santoshi's action thriller film Khakee in 2004. The film also starred Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar, Tusshar Kapoor, and Atul Kulkarni in the leading roles. During the filming, Aishwarya suffered an injury on the sets in Nashik and Amitabh had arranged Anil Ambani's private plane to take her back to Mumbai.
In an interview with Rediff in 2003, Amitabh recalled the entire incident. The Sholay actor said, "We were shooting for Rajkumar Santoshi's Khakee on the road outside Nashik. The stuntman drove too fast, at 60, 70 kilometres per hour, and skidded. All of us jumped out of the way. But Aishwarya and Tusshar Kapoor couldn't move fast enough. The car slammed into her chair. It was terrifying.
"The car hit her and took her down a crevice and slammed into a cactus plant. Akshay Kumar pulled the car out and extricated her. We rushed her to hospital. We had to go through terrible crowd management problems. I have gone through this 'VIP syndrome' before. Thank God the hospital and doctor were very good. The commissioner of police in Nashik organised everything", he continued.
Amitabh further added, "I asked Aishwarya's mother if she wanted to take her daughter back to Mumbai. We organised Anil Ambani's private plane. Since there is no night landing facility in Nashik, we had to take permission from Delhi to land the plane at the military base which is 45 minutes away from the hospital. The seats had to be removed from the aircraft."
Slamming the media for reporting it as a trivial incident, the superstar concluded, "And everyone is brushing it off as a small incident blown out of proportion. For two nights I couldn't sleep. To see this happen in front of my eyes! Her back was lacerated with cactus thorns. The bone in the rear portion of her feet is broken. She suffered severe cuts. And her injury was reported as trivial."
Khakee was a commercial and critical success. The film is still remembered for its shocking twist in the pre-climax, when Aishwarya is revealed to be villain Ajay's girlfriend and helping him as a double agent against the cops played by Amitabh, Akshay, and Tusshar.
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