After having worked together in Chandni Chowk to China, the famed jodi of Akshay Kumar and Nikhil Advani are all set to recreate their magic in the upcoming Bollywood film ‘Patiala House’. The movie is a story of a Sikh who gives up his dream to save his father's reputation until he meets a girl who gives him the strength to stand up for what he believes. 

The movie sports huge starcast with Akshay Kumar in the lead along with the ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’ and ‘Badmaash Company’ fame Anushka Sharma. Akshay will be seen playing the role of ‘Parghat Singh Kahlon’ while the beautiful Anushka plays ‘Simran’ in the movie. After being seen together in Namastey London, Akshay will be once again seen with the ‘Bobby’ hero Rishi Kapoor who plays Akshay’s father ‘Gurtej Singh Kahlon’. The ‘Bobby’ pair reappears in the film, with Rishi teaming up with Dimple Kapadia, who makes it to the silver screen after her last movie ‘Jumbo’ went unnoticed at the box office. The movie also stars the first female Indian rapper, Hard Kaur. English cricketing legends Nasser Hussain, Graham Gooch, Ian Botham, David Gower and also Pakistan wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal will be seen as guest appearances in the movie. The movie produced by Mukesh Talreja, has been directed by Nikhil Advani and music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. 

The movie began shooting in December 2009 and has been pre-dominantly shot in Britain, with some scenes being shot at the cricket stadium of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club. Akshay is seen playing for the English Cricket Team as a frontline pace bowler and has taken special bowling training from the 1983 World Cup winning champion Balvinder Singh Sandhu. In an interview with a British based Punjabi website, Akki-baby jokes around with the reporter and asks his interview to be taken in Punjabi rather than English. The ‘Khiladi’ Kumar sports the Sikh tattoo on his wrist in the movie and is quick to inform the audience that ‘Patiala’ means big in Punjabi and ‘Patiala House’ refers to the huge house that is shown in the movie and not the Patiala province in Punjab! The movie highlights the generation and cultural gaps that exists between original migrants and their grandchildren who have been born and brought up in UK. 

Anushka signed for Patiala House One of the close sources from London reveals, "Nikhil Advani still remembers the day when he read an article on why Aditya Chopra cast Anushka Sharma opposite Shahrukh Khan for Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. The reason which Adi gave to the Press was that he wanted the audiences to feel that they were watching a SRK film but landed up coming out of the cinema houses seeing Suri, the character SRK plays in the film." The source adds further, "If Nikhil had cast any well known face opposite Akshay Kumar, the audiences reaction would be different. Here they are clearly going to go in the cinemas watching an Akshay Kumar film but he wants them to come out of the theaters watching the character Akki plays. Nikhil wanted to make the characters real and so he cast Anushka Sharma. People are going to remember the character Anushka plays more than the actress of RNBDJ. Add to that, she is only remembered through RNBDJ as of now. Patiala House is a film with real characters, real moments and real emotions. In fact, Nikhil has also decided to tag this film 'A film by Nikhil Advani' as it remains true to himself more than giving out any wrong notions about the film to the audiences." Well, for now, all Nikhil needs to do is - Thank Aditya Chopra for roping in Anushka Sharma. And two, pray that Patiala House brings the house down with its antics, emotions and a good story telling.

Amitabh Bachchan