When Salman Khan turns 58 on the 27th of this month, it won’t be the most comfortable birthday of his life. For a year that will go down in cinematic history as the golden period of the Hindi box office, it has been a singularly heartbreaking time for Salman.

It goes beyond the weak responseto his Id release Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi KiJaan (KKBKKJ) and the tepidness of Tiger 3 this Diwali. It’s about having to watch his rivals zoom past him and having to pragmatically give himself a mental makeover.

While the public posturing is of mutual bhai-bhai backslapping, there is an unstated competitiveness in neighbours Salman and Shah Rukh Khan. Salman has had to watch SRK not only notch up two blockbusters this year, but has also had to set aside his long-drawn prejudices. True, Salman did energise Pathaan with a brief entry as Tiger and when a couple of people tried to give him credit for the film’s success, he was analytical enough to say, “Let’s see how my solo film KKBKKJ does. Otherwise, people will say, when you couldn’t make your own film run, how are you taking credit for the success of Shah Rukh’s film?”

This reflected the introspective side of Salman, a man who counselled himself when things went wrong.

SRK not only gave two blockbusters in a row, he also interacted with his audience only through #AskSRK sessions on X, besides unofficially dispersing fattened box-office figures via pliant voices in the film trade. He got away with cocking a snook at the media by showing he could proclaim success without pandering to the press.

On the other hand, when Tiger 3 did not set the box office on fire, Salman had to break his restriction on media interactions and do a spate of post-release interviews along with Katrina Kaif as a last-ditch attempt to inject life into a listless film. But there was only that much a cabal of trade folks could do to prop up a disappointing film as a box-office delight. In private moments, one had to see the bottom line in the accounts books and acknowledge that the graph was heading dangerously southwards.

Everybody else was in celebratory mode. Anil Sharma, who had followed up his 2001 hit Gadar with a big-budget failure named Veer in 2010 starring Salman, came up trumps again only with Sunny Deol. Salman’s bete noire Ranbir Kapoor had an enormously enjoyable year. Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar, a moderate success, was like foreplay before he climaxed with the box-office monster, Animal.

There is an indication that Salman has reflected deeply and accepted that he has been muffing up big time byhaving ego duels withprofessional filmmakers like Sanjay Leela Bhansali in the belief that his presence alone could make effete yes-men like Far-had Samji (director ofKKBKKJ) and Remo D’souza (Race 3) deliver blockbusters. The list of people he had either humiliated or given the cold shoulder to include musicians (Pritam, Himesh Reshammiya, Arijit Singh, Sonu Nigam), filmmakers (Kabir Khan, Ali Abbas Zafar, Bhansali) and actors (Vivek Oberoi, John Abraham, Shahid Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Ranbir, Ronit Roy), all for varying periods and for different reasons.

In contrast to the public swagger, Salman seems to have realised that he cannot continue feuding with so many all his life. It’s a good sign that Pritam (sidelined for Race 3 after he’d made it clear during Tubelight that he did entire albums and didn’t enjoy sharing credit with other composers) is noiselessly back to the fold. The noisier patch-up with singer Arijit Singh was long overdue as Leke Prabhu ka naam was perhaps the most saleable part of Tiger 3.

So, Id ho ya Diwali, lessons imparted on both festive occasions seem to have positively impacted the Khan who got left behind this year but will be seen fighting back in the months to come. To use the one-word title of Bhansali’s stalled Salman-starrer, Inshallah.