/> Ranbir Kapoor starts shooting with Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D'Cruz for Anurag Basu's Barfee on March 15...finally! But after much deliberation, alteration and revision in the original concept. Interestingly the principal actors and the director, not to mention the film's producer, all need to get themselves and their screen images out of the depressive zone.

Anurag Basu's last film Kites was not only a boxoffice turkey it also showed the lead pair commiting suicide at the end of the film. Audiences rejected Anurag's dirgeful dedication to that thing they call love.

Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra's last outing together was the mega-fiasco Anjaana Anjaani in which both played suicidal souls jumping off bridges, putting plastic bags on their faces, popping pills and seeking every possible means of ending their lives. Understandably the film had anything but a happy ending at the boxoffice.

Now in Barfee Ranbir plays a deaf and mute character while Priyanka plays a mentally challenged girl. Not a very happy situation to be in, when your last film about depressed characters has been rejected at the boxoffice.

Not surprisingly director Anurag Basu is making Barfee a positive life-asserting films with plenty of humour, music, dancing and singing. Basu has been holed up for some months now concentrating on instilling a positivity and laughter into the script.

To begin with, the title of the film was changed from the dark Silence to the sweet-and-cute Barfee. More importantly, the film will now have as many 10-12 songs, although the hero doesn't talk or speak.

Says a source, "Anurag Basu was earlier working simultaneously on his two Ranbir Kapoor projects Barfee and Kishore(the Kishore Kumar bio-pic) for UTV. In the past few months he abandoned Kishore to focus on altering and fine-tuning Barfee.

Though Ranbir's character of Barfee cannot hear or speak he will be shown to be a happy-go-lucky sod. He will be goofy and fun-loving, making others laugh while laughing at his own debilitating disabilities. "

Anurag Basu admits Barfee is a happy film. "It's a very funny very upbeat film. "

UTV's Siddharth Roy Kapoor denies the script of Barfee had to undergo any changes. "Barfee is going entirely as per plan. "

Quiz him on whether UTV's latest dark offering 7 Khoon Maaf has under-performed and Siddharth smiles, "I love the way it is assumed we've suffered a loss on 7 Khoon Maaf. That is far from the truth. "

The truth, however bitter, is that dark melancholy films on physical and emotional disabilities and death are not quite the entertainment audiences want. And UTV-Anurag Basu have woken up to the fact just in time.

Barfee is going to be as happy and musical a film about physical disability as Ranbir's dad Rishi Kapoor's Sargam three decades ago.