by Subhash K Jha

Even as Deepak Tijori's Tom Dick & Harry seems to have got itself in a titular budge with Sohail Khan, there seems to be more trouble around the corner for this comedy about a deaf, blind and mute trio of masti-makers.

The Masti maker Indra Kumar is currently putting finishing touches to a comedy in Bangkok called Pyare Mohan where Fardeen Khan plays a blind guy and Vuvek Oberoi plays a deaf dude.

The immediately interesting part of this project isn't the sudden upsurge of interest in the physically/emotionally impaired after Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Khamoshi: The Musical, Vipul Shah's Aankhen, Bhansali's Black and Nagesh Kukunoor's Iqbal, but the fact that another film Deepak Tijori's Tom Dick & Harry is also about three physically impaired heroes played by Dino Morea, Jimmy Shergil and Anuj Sawhney.

Pyare Mohan seems to be on a direct collision course with Tom Dick & Harry.

"Not really," says the super-confident leading man Dino Morea who plays the deaf Tom in Tijori's comedy of survival.

"We're aware Pyare Mohan treads the same territory. But we've nothing to fear. Firstly, because I believe we've made a better film. And secondly because we're coming before them. Our release date is Jan 20. Going by the amount of fun we're having during the shoot, I can imagine how much the audience will enjoy the film."

The buzz from the sets of Tom Dick & Harry is that Dino is devastatingly funny in the film.

"I'm just discovering my funny bone," he chuckles. "I'm a great prankster on the sets. I've been constantly playing pranks on all my co-stars during the film. In fact I just tied Celina Jaitley's shoe laces together. If she can't fall in love with me, she can at least fall, ha ha."

Comic camaraderie is compulsory to make a comedy work on screen, insists Dino.

"We've been having a whole lot of comedies about heroes in twos and threes bumbling through life. And now we've two films about physically impaired heroes. Tom Dick & Harry never makes fun of the handicapped characters. It shows how the three of us who are deaf mute and blind use all the devices at our disposal to survive. I don't know what they're doing in Pyare Mohan. But I know we're making a sincere and funny film."