Tendulkar makes time for a special date with Bollywood

Mumbai: After scoring his 49th Test century last week Sachin Tendulkar made a call to his buddy filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra with a request. The cricketer and his wife wanted to watch the highly-acclaimed working-class comedy Do Dooni Chaar, which brought the Rishi Kapoor-Neetu Singh pair together again after 30 years.

Sachin didn't know the film's makers and so asked Chopra, with whom he has lately been in touch, about watching Do Dooni Chaar. As luck would have it, Chopra himself loved this little film about a mathematics professor in Delhi trying to buy a car for his family, and immediately got in touch with the film's team.

Sachin, his wife and their close friends watched Do Dooni Chaar at the KetNav dubbing studio in Bandra recently.

Sachin was overwhelmed.

Film's director Habib Faizal said: "Sachin did express a wish to relax with my film after his triumph last week. Vidhu Vinod Chopra is a good friend of Tendulkar's. And luckily for us, Vinod too loved Do Dooni Chaar."

"Sachin Tendulkar seemed to really connect with the film. It could be because Sachin has himself come up the hard way. And though today he is a super-icon, he knows the middle-class milieu of my film. I think he remains a man rooted to basics."

A Marathi by birth, Sachin seemed to enjoy the Punjabi milieu and jokes in Do Dooni Chaar.

"After the match at Bangalore where Sachin scored his 49th Test century, he expressed a wish to relax by watching Do Dooni Chaar. I think he's a fan of Rishi Kapoor and Neetuji. Unfortunately, they couldn't attend the screening at KetNav," Habib said.

Though cricket and Bollywood are never far apart, cricket's biggest icon Sachin Tendulkar, a self-confessed movie buff, hardly gets time to watch movies, let alone act in one.

Recently, he turned down Vidhu Vinod Chopra's offer for Ferarri Ki Sawari. But after watching Do Dooni Chaar, he has expressed a desire to work with Habib Faizal.