by Subhash K Jha

The curiosity to see Rakeysh Mehra's ode to love youth and youthful aspirations grows by the day.

And the postponement of the film's release from this Friday(Jan 20) to Thursday(Jan 26) has only added to the curiosity.

No one , not even the film's crew has seen Rang de Basanti. "Not even my 6-year old daughter Bhairavi. But one of her friends saw it very long ago when we had completed the film. And now poor Bhairavi can't hear the end of it," chuckles Rakeysh.

On Thursday Rakeysh was in Pune for the Pune Film Festival where Rang De Basanti was supposed to be screened. However the screening was cancelled.

Explains Rakeysh, "It was a big blow to all of us who were there—Aamir, Soha, Sharman Joshi, Kunal Kapoor and Siddharth, and for the audience . We were supposed to screen Rang De Basanti as the Pune festival's closing film. But now with the release being postponed to next Thursday it didn't make sense to show the film to the Festival. "

"It was okay to screen it at Pune this Thursday when the film's commercial release was the next day...not any more. Anyway, we all went up on stage and said sorry to the audience. They were extremely gracious and curious about the film. They asked a thousand questions. I hope the curiosity remains alive until the film's release."

Interestingly the postponement of Rang De Basanti has eventuated in a no-release situation in theatre's this week.

"No other filmmaker, big or small, was willing to take on Basanti. In spite of Aamir's last film(Mangal Pandey) not being up to the mark and Rakeysh Mehra's last film Aks causing a public perplexity," observes filmmaker Hansal Mehta