It is not in his blood, it is not his character, but circumstances can make even lions eat grass. Maybe it is more correct to say that the wise people know when to run for cover so that they can live to fight another day.

That is what it has come to, we thought of a Deepavali with Shah Rukh’s Om Shanthi Om and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya and before the heat died down the sequel to Sarkar was supposed to hit the screens by early December.

Titled Sarkar Raj, the movie is directed by…. You guessed it, Ramgopal Verma. The man as we all know has not had a worse time in his entire career as a film maker. In the past two months he has seen a decade worth of work and hard built reputation going down the drain. What happened to Aag and Darling and more recently Go need not be mentioned here. More than the quality of the films that he makes he has been receiving a lot of stick for the selection of the cast. People are not able to figure out the reason behind him casting Nisha Kothari in lead roles over and over again when she has proved emphatically that she has nothing to show in terms of acting skills.

So here’s the news. In keeping with his current form- his name can keep the audience miles away from theaters, it has been decided quite wisely that Sarkar Raj will not release anytime in December. In fact it has been postponed to an early date in 2008; now how early that is going to be is anybody’s guess. January is packed with releases. This is in spite of Sarkar Raj boasting of a huge star cast including Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai. There is another shocker. A movie starring Isha Kopikkar in the lead has been lying in the cans for quite some time now. Rumor is that it will lie in the cans for a long time to come or even forever. There are plans to avoid a theatrical release and go in for a full DVD release. So much for the confidence of RGV! But maybe it makes sense to lie low when the tide is not going one’s way. He has wisely chosen to stay away from the rumble of the biggies this Deepavali and Christmas. Maybe, when the public have forgotten (the public does have a volatile memory) a movie called Aag, an aberration called Darling and the collateral mistake called Go, Ram Gopal Verma and his Factory may come out of incubation and serve us with some good stuff. Meanwhile you can catch up with Subhash Naghre in Sarkar on Sahara TV. They tend to play it almost every other week.