Abhishek who was once written off was now going for the top and there was no stopping him. Around the same time focus suddenly shifted from Abhishek’s professional ascent to his personal life as he had begun dating. Aishwarya Rai, the most desirable woman in the country. Abhishek’s surge to the top, him being with Aishwarya Rai, was too much of a good thing. His detractors just couldn’t digest the fact that all his fingers were dipped in a pie. Abhishek began receiving inexplicable and unreasonable flak for his personal life. And strangely, his popularity with the women folk dipped, probably because he was already taken.

As if to just round off bad timing, ‘Dhoom II’ happened around the same time. Abhishek faced a highly charged Hrithik Roshan in a tailor-made role, and Duggu just swept away Abhishek despite his own creditable performance But Abhi took all the unjustified criticism on his chin and went about choosing his work carefully. He was already working on Mani Ratnam’s ‘Guru’ then, and the bliss in his personal life was keeping him in good stead.

It was then, that Abhishek had become wary about the fickle nature of the media and the audience. He also was on guard about his space, trusting only a few close friends with advice and feedback. And he had decided to choose his projects with utmost care, not relying on the reputation of the filmmaker.

‘Guru’’s success was marked by Abhishek’s career best performance and was followed by his engagement to Ash. However, their in your face display of affection on various occasions, be it public events or much-followed temple visits, didn’t go down well with the watchers. And the ostentatious but private wedding of the century only added to the bad blood towards the Bachchans.

Abhishek was watching and making his moves very carefully after everything he did was being questioned. He had only signed good friend Goldie Behl’s ‘Drona’ post ‘Guru’, so all those who insinuated that Abhi-Ash alliance was a stupendous business proposition were left eating their own words. Ash pulled out of Karan Johar produced ‘Raaste’ with Abhishek and neither were there zillion brand endorsements for the couple, as was being anticipated.

Post Guru amongst filmmakers who were queuing outside his doorstep was Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, who was making a semi-autobiographical ‘Dilli 6’. ‘The project was tossed around between Abhishek, who was the original choice for the role, to Hrithik to upstart Ranbir Kapoor, who all rejected the film for various reasons.