/> The Sikh community feels the length of Akshay's beard as the Sardarji in Singh Is Kiing might influence his impressionable Sikh fans to trim their beards.

Says Vipul, "Yes, the experts have commented on the length of Akshay's beard. Actually the first photo-shoot showed Akshay without a beard.

We realized our mistake and corrected it, and then Akshay grew a trimmed beard (actually a stubble). That explains Akshay's bearded look for the past six months. The experts felt puri dadhi rakhte to achcha hota.Their worry is that Akshay is a role model.

And if young Sikhs see him with a trimmed bear they may start emulating him. I agree with this misgiving. In fact I've made an effort to justify Akshay's brief beard in the dialogues.

In fact when Akshay returns to his village at the end he has the full traditional Sikh beard."

So is Vipul suggesting that the size of the beard determines the extent of an individual's religiosity?

"I don't want to contest any community's religious beliefs. I'm here to make movies not challenge or offend any community.

So when the Sikh experts asked us for that one dialogue justifying Akshay's abbreviated beard I had no hesitation in respecting their sentiments. Now the Sikh experts are very happy. We sorted it all out in five days."

The supposed ire of the Sikh community regarding Akshay Kumar's star-turn as a Sikh has now been telescoped to just two aberrations that Vipul would be more than happy to alter before the film's release in August.

The second is a line of Gurbani recited wrongly.

Says Vipul, "It's just a case of a grammatical error, nothing else. I offered to reshoot the scene. But the Sikh leader Mr Gurbachan Singh Bachchan and his colleagues saw the film and gave us a clean chit

. They said, no need to re-shoot, just re-dub it. They showed us how to pronounce it. I've got their go-ahead in writing. We didn't want to hurt anybody. I'm not a Sikh, neither is my director Anees Bazmi."

"The minute reports of protests by the Sikh community came out we immediately decided to clear it.

There was report about Om Puri's turban, when he isn't even playing a Sardarji. Then they wrote that I had to destroy 2 lakh posters due to protests. Posters for Singh Is Kiing aren't even printed."

Vipul contacted the censorboard who invited the Sikh experts. "Believe me, they didn't tamper with one shot. All they wanted was for us to add a dialogue saying cutting the beard is not the right thing to do."

Singh Is Kiing releases on 8 August.