In the wake of the controversy surrounding Bollywood star Aamir Khan's association with the Narmada Bachao Andolan, actor Rahul Bose urged celebrities to segregate social work from their screen commitments.

Here to cheer a group of underprivileged, physically challenged and spastic children on Wednesday evening, Bose supported Khan, his long time friend, and advocated a divide between social work and acting.

"We are not so rich that we should forget the poor," the actor said to a query if he supported celebrity endorsement of social causes.

To an observation that filmstars used such pubilicity prior to the release of their movies to increase ticket sales, he said, "this is a cynical thought. I have been working in the Andamans for the last two years post-tsunami without a single photograph being published in any newspaper."

The actor, who shot to fame with his classic roles in films like Mr And Mrs Iyer, 15 Park Avenue, Chameli and Jhankar Beats, said he believed that charity begins at home and all stars must dedicate time to social work.

It was a similar social cause that brought the accomplished actor and director to his hometown.

An ambassador of the spastic society himself, Bose cheered and distributed gifts to the children as they laughed and sang for him at a 'meet and greet' session arranged by a city-based NGO.

"But if you ask me, I do not intend to do a film on the spastics since I don't want to burden films for the cause of social work... Making a film is only two per cent of the job done," he said.

On his forthcoming films, Bose said he was looking forward to his first Hollywood production, two Bengali ventures and two Bollywood movies.

Tentatively called Kerala, where he plays a Malayalam farmer, would be the character actor's first foray into Hollywood.

Bose, who would prefer a 'bad art film' to a 'good commercial film', said he had a fair crop of Bengali Arthouse Productions lined up in Kalpurush and

Anuranan starring Raima Sen and Rituparna Sengupta.

He also has a psychological thriller The Whisperers co-starring Manoj Bajpayee coming up.

Bose said his co-star Mallika Sherawat in a forthcoming romantic comedy Pyar Ke Side Effects was 'good'. "And you can quote me on that!"