While some Bollywood films have survived the onslaught of torrential rains in India's entertainment capital, the latest releases sure appear to have taken a beating.

"Not so at all," says David Dhawan when asked if the rains ruined box-office takings in the country, especially Maharashtra.

His "Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya" has survived the Salman Khan tapes scandal and Mumbai's torrential rains. "Why would the rains affect the box office? In fact the enforced holidays last week actually added to the ticket sales for my film."

Dhawan is right. One couldn't get tickets for "Maine Pyar..." in Mumbai last week.

Another theory doing the rounds is that the trade is bound to get badly affected when such a natural calamity strikes the city.

This week's three films were all unusual ones that required considerable nurturing. The inclement weather conditions and seizure of all traffic at the Mumbai airport made the distribution process this week almost impossible.

Until Thursday morning, Kabeer Kaushik, the director of "Saher", was frantically trying to ensure that his film reached all the centres in time. Kaushik personally took prints to Delhi as his personal luggage. But the film couldn't make it into some centres, including the director's home state Bihar.

The saddest plight was that of Shoojeet Sircar's brave and beautiful "Yahaan", which under normal circumstances would have grown by word of mouth.

Unfortunately, with the threatening weather, audiences were just not in the mood to brave the theatres to see a little-known film.

So is this why Suneel Darshan decided to postpone the long-delayed "Mere Jeevan Saathi" once again? The film, produced by old-timer Suraj Prakash - who once made the hit "Jab Jab Phool Khile" - has been in the making since long before Karisma Kapoor's marriage and motherhood.

Could Darshan be sidelining "Mere Jeevan Saathi" to give priority to his home production "Barsaat" which opens Aug 19? "Not at all," protests the affable and thoroughly professional filmmaker.

"The producer wants to release 'Mere Jeevan Saathi' with proper planning and projection. The first copy is out and the film has shaped up well. It will be Karisma Kapoor's comeback film," hopes the director whose favourite actress has unabashedly been Karisma.