by Subhash K Jha

Get a load of this. They are both, ha ha, comedies. They're both about physically impaired heroes.

While Deepak Tijori's Tom Dick & Harry stars Dino Morea, Anuj Sawhney and Jimmy Shergill as a deaf, blind and mute trio, Indra Kumar 's Pyare Mohan had Vivek Oberoi and Fardeen Khan as a blind and deaf pair of lover-boys trying to woo the ladies.

Both these comedies build on the male-bonding theme that has become a hot favourite since Indra Kumar's Mast.

But to bring both the boys' films with physically impaired heroes within a month of each other ??!! Indra Kumar shrugs, "After I came out with Masti the hundred ripoffs took time to come off the conveyer belt. This time I was half-way through Pyare Mohan and others jumped on to the bandwagon.

I can't help it. Everyone has a right to do what he wants. We started shooting our film in August and had been planning it six months prior to that.

After our first schedule I suddenly came to know someone else is making a similar film. At first I was disturbed. But then I decided it's okay. Ek jaisi love stories and action films kitni banti hain. Ek se bhala do."

Indra Kumar admits there'd be an excess of handicapped humour in theatres. "I did my job. The audience had passed its verdict. We gave them (the makers of Tom Dick & Harry) a chance to come before us. It's obvious they wanted to release with us.

Finally better sense prevailed. If we had come together as they had planned, both of us would have suffered, though my losses would have been minimal compared with theirs."

But now that Pyare Mohan has bombed, the TDH makers are jittery, though they're trying to put up a brave front. "Ours is a far better film," says Dino.

This isn't the first time that two near-identical films have decided to take each other on. The last time such a head-long confrontation seemed inevitable was when Ashwini Chowdhary's Siskiyan and Kanika Verma's Dansh were ready. Both films flopped.

Sighs Indra Kumar, "Such confrontations are not beneficial. Before Pyare Mohan I was making an English film. Writer Yunus Sajawal called up and told me he was part of a similar project and that I should drop it. On his say-so I dropped the English film and started Pyare Mohan.

Then when Tom Dick & Harry was announced I got to know Yunus was its writer. I rang him up and confronted him. I asked him how they could start a film similar to mine when mine was half-complete. Why this duplicity knowingly?

He said it was director Deepak Tijori's idea.All I want to say, how can the film industry survive let alone thrive in this atmosphere of mutual destruction?"

Speaking on behalf of his film Tom Dick & Harry, leading man Dino Morea says, "We're aware of the other film. I don't think our film has anything to do with Pyare Mohan. Our film is loosely inspired by the play All The Best.

Pyare Mohan was more like the Arthur Hiller comedy See No Evil Hear No Evil. Even if there're similarities so what? There's enough room for everyone in the industry and the audiences' hearts."