/> It's 3 am in New York and Saif has just packed up after a hard day's shooting of Siddharth Anand's Tara Rum Pam.

"It's going really well. I think Siddharth has another winner on his hands after Salaam Namaste. It feels wonderful to be part of cinema so different from one another, like Omkara and Tara Rum Pam."

If as an actor Saif couldn't look more well-placed there's always that dollop of darkness to dissipate the pleasure.

"What's this about a showdown with Rani Mukherjee? Am I mad to have a showdown with her? I mean, come on! Rani and I have shared a cordial professional relationship ever since we did Hum Tum together.

That film will always remain special to me. It was my first solo-hero hit. I won't say Rani and I are close friends. But we connect really well on the sets. We do our work together and move in different directions after-hours."

So where did these rumours come from? "I'll tell you their probable origins. When I arrived in NY I stayed with the rest of the Tara Rum Pam unit in the same hotel. But then when Rosa joined me I wanted us to live in an apartment. I feel that's that's the only way to get to know a city.

I've stayed in London and I know how much difference a private place makes to your connectivity with a city. That's it. As soon as Rosa and I moved into an apartment news spread that Rani and I were staying in separate hotels. That's truly dumb, man.

The last thing we need on a foreign location is the principal lead's tantrums. And do you think we can get away with a showdown in front of the whole unit? We'd have had the details of the slaps and punches pasted on the internet."

Humour intact, Saif gets into grimmer ground. "I've heard rumours about Rosa and I splitting, and that she has gone back home to Mumbai before me because of our fights. For Chrissake, we're doing well for ourselves as a couple. Do we need these rumours to come and spoil things between us?

I guess every relationship conducted in the limelight is subjected to such scrutiny. I can take that. But it gets a bit annoying when we need to time our comings and goings according to the way people would respond to our movement. We can't help it if people think our relationship is in trouble. The fact is, we're very happy together."

So where are the rumours coming from? "Search me! Probably from people who need to get a life."