Viveck Vaswani’s Dulha Mil Gaya, which has SRK in a guest appearance, has long been overdue, writes Joginder Tuteja

It isn’t something which happens often, but the fact is that the Shah Rukh Khan starrer Dulha Mil Gaya is continuing to get delayed month after month.

It’s original plan of a 2007 end release is anyways history. When the film’s release was re-planned, March 2008 seemed to be the probable timeframe but as things stand today, it would be an achievement even if Dulha manages to release even in the first half of 2008.

There have been multiple reasons stated for the delay of this film, which stars Shah Rukh Khan in an extended guest appearance. One of the most prominent reasons stated though was SRK’s unavailability since he was busy with Chak De and Om Shanti Om in the year gone by.

However, producer Viveck Vaswani has vehemently denied that SRK was not cooperating for the film’s progress. He has maintained that a concrete release date was never announced in the first place and hence the news around the  delay was speculative. Instead, he had said that since SRK was busy with the promotion of Om Shanti Om, he didn’t want to ‘disturb’ him!

As per Vaswani, eight to 10 days of the shooting is left with SRK. Also, it makes sense if variation in the release plans is by months but in case of Dulha, it is by years as the film has been pushed from 2007 to the middle of 2008 (if it doesn’t get delayed further). However, to save time, the makers have been working full throttle on the  post production of the filming that has already happened.

When contacted Vaswani said, “There is no release plan for the film yet. For the last two months I have not been at work as my father was  critically ill. He expired a few days ago. We would start working from the end of February and it would be only after that we would be able to finally decide everything.”

A large part of the film has been already been shot in Trinidad and Tobago with Sushmita Sen and Fardeen Khan. The film also stars Tara Sharma, Suchitra Pillai, Howard Rosemeyer and also Viveck Vaswani. Muddassar Aziz, who has written lyrics for films like Aashiq Banaya Aapne, Zindaggi Rocks is the storywriter as well as the director of Dulha.

In the near future, SRK would be seen in a guest appearance also in Bhootnath. The date for this Ravi Chopra production has been locked as May 9. The only film, which would see SRK in a lead role this year is Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, which will be produced and directed by Aditya Chopra and would feature a debutant girl opposite him.