By Subhash K Jha

What happened to John's most personal and autobiographical film Aashayein? It was by far his most challenging and emotional film, and one that John was going all-out to promote along with the film's director Nagesh Kukunoor.

The film was supposed to release in the first half of July. But got yanked off suddenly.

The reason given by the film's co-producer Elahi Hiptoolah was that John got busy with his brother's wedding to his Romanian fiancé. But now with John's brother married and well-settled Aashayein seems nowhere in sight.

Now a new release date, November 28, has been set. And it isn't coincidental that John's big Bollywood comedy about two room- mates pretending to be gay Dostana comes two weeks before Aashayein.

After his rather sorry experiment with truth in No Smoking John has learnt his lesson well.

Says John, "It's not just important to be part of good meaningful cinema. It's equally, if not more important to make sure that the film gets marketed and released properly. There's no point in doing cinema you believe in unless you can get enough people to share it with you."

And John is more than hopeful that Aashayein will prove his faith in sincere authentic cinema.

Says a friend of the actor, "John was very disappointed with the way No Smoking was released and received. It never stood a chance. John had worked very hard for the character. He's still very proud of the film, but feels it got a raw deal.

He won't allow the same story to be repeated with Aashayein. He also feels releasing this small intimate film where he has the best role of his career, just ahead of Dostana would generate enough interest in Aashayein to get audiences into theatres.

He's convinced once they see the film they'll be hooked. At the moment John is shooting for Kabeer Khan's New York in NY. He was down in Mumbai to shoot the climax of Dostana and now he's back in New York to shoot for Kabeer's film."

Adds Elahi Hiptoola, "Aashayein has been moved to 28th because that's when both John and Nagesh will be here to promote the film. Nagesh is shooting Tasveer in South Africa. He returns early November."