Deepika and Anushka hugged each other with twinkly-eyed affection
Bring out the Band Baaja, actresses Deepika Padukone appear to be friends. Because only friends would greet each other with the sort of effusiveness that was on display at Mumbai' Sun-n-Sand Hotel on March 16. Deepika and Anushka, who were part of a Bollywood delegation discussing Censor Board issues with I&B Minister of State Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, hugged each other with twinkly-eyed affection and posed for pictures together.
Deepika and Anushka are rumoured to be actor Ranveer Singh's current and former girlfriends, respectively. While that might not be reason enough to presume a big chill between the actresses, it appeared that Anushka, for one, was not overly keen to be buddies till some time ago. When Deepika claimed a friendship with Anushka on TV show Koffee With Karan, Anushka disagreed. On a separate episode of the show, she told host Karan Johar, "I don't think she's a friend, she's not an enemy though. Friend is a very big thing, Karan. I have five friends who I've known for so many years. It's not like we call each other or we talk. We chat, we send messages but that doesn't mean we talk ill about one another, or we hate one another. I guess when she said that she just meant to say that I'm not her enemy, I guess that's what she meant."
The actresses certainly seem to have progressed beyond 'not enemies.' Karan had received Deepika's insistence on a friendship with skepticism. He told Anushka on the show, "Deepika said that you were her friend and I looked at her and said, "Well if you think she's your friend, you're living in a bubble".
A short while ago, Anushka was among those Bollywood voices who praised Deepika for publicly discussing her battle with depression. A report in Filmfare Magazine quoted Anushka as saying, "When Deepika spoke about her depression, people wrote so many things about her. She was doing it for a larger cause. Catherine Zeta Jones is dealing with bipolar disorder. Do people write such things about her? She had the decency and the dignity to talk about it openly because she was doing it for a larger cause."
Deepika, who co-starred with ex-boyfriend Ranbir Kapoor in
Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani and is currently filming
Tamasha with him, knows a thing or two about letting bygones be bygones. Anushka appears to be catching up.