/> Pratik, with or without the Babbar, was in a soup last week. The poor chap was helplessly torn between his desire to be part of the multi-city tour for his new film Dum Maro Dum that his co-stars Abhishek Bachchan and Rana Daggubati had undertaken, and his commitment to shoot for Tamil director Gautham Menon's film a remake of Menon's Tamil hit.

Says a source, "Since Pratik has grown really fond of both Abhishek and Rana he was super-excited about joining the gang. And it made sense too, as Pratik is one of the three leads in the film. However Menon wouldn't hear of it. He is eager to finish the film quickly since this is his first Hindi release since Rehna Hai Terre Dil Mein in in 2001. "

Letting Pratik off for what someone close to Menon's project sarcastically describes as a Bharat Darshan at this juncture is out of the question.

Rohan Sippy gives a whole lot of weightage to 'Bharat Darshan' for the promotion of the film. In fact there will be no premiere of Dum Maro Dum since the film's principal stars are touring.

"We feel the actors reaching into the non-metropolitan sectors of film distribution is a most effective tool of promoting a film...how effective we will soon know.

We have undertaken a market survey to find out how much of a difference the physical presence of the stars in the smaller towns would make to the final boxoffice outcome of the film.

Yes, we would have loved to have Pratik join Abhishek and Rana in the city tours. But he's shooting another film and can't get away. The poor boy is trying hard to accommodate as much of the events as possible. "

The "poor boy" has apparently been checking on his traveling co-stars quite regularly telling them how much he misses being with them.

Says Rohan Sippy, "This tour to promote our film would have been a great learning experience for Pratik. He's such a wonderful boy. And so affectionate. We all love him. But he has been shooting with Gautham Menon from the beginning of the month. Pratik joined us whenever he could. "