After Abhishek Bachchan, it is Jimmy Sheirgill's turn to make a whirlwind trip of multiple cities to promote his upcoming film. While Abhishek Bachchan is aiming for a Guinness record after covering six cities in 24 hours to promote DELHI 6, Jimmy Sheirgill too has gone all out to take his Punjabi film TERA MERA KI RISHTA to all parts of Punjab.
In a span of one week, he covered more than half a dozen cities by taking a 3500 kilometers road trip through Punjab. These cities were Panchkula, Chandigarh, Patiala, Mandi Gobindgarh, Bhatinda, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar.
''I was there along with Kulraj Randhawa, the leading lady of TERA MERA KI RISHTA, along with Gurpreet Ghuggi and the director of the film Navnaint Singh. All of us were together in 2-3 cars with a matador following us that had posters of the film'', says Jimmy Sheirgill who continues to stay rooted to Punjabi films in spite of his career in Bollywood.
''We wanted to promote the film in a unique way to reach out to the masses in the innermost regions of Punjab. It wasn't a typical road show though since we had planned it more on the lines of a 'rath yatra'. In the end we ended up having a Punjab yatra'', quips Jimmy who, after the super success of A WEDNESDAY, is going choosy with his roles and has only signed Karan Johar's under production film MY NAME IS KHAN.
Other than promoting the film through the road trip, the cast and crew also made frequent stoppages at colleges and universities to have a direct dialogue with youth.
''In current times, you can't stay aloof like a conventional hero and wait for audiences to reach out to you. It's your job to reach out to the audiences. You can't afford to have a distance from them'', Jimmy states the reason behind organizing a road trip.
Touted to be the costliest Punjabi movie ever made, TERA KERA KI RISHTA is expecting some great footfalls on it's release if huge turnaround of crowds for it's promotional campaign is any indication.
''Imagine 10000 odd people turning up in a mode similar to that of an election rally and screaming 'Tera Mera Ki Rishta' in unison. It was surreal'', says an emotionally charged Jimmy, ''For a lack of a better word, it was actually a 'bawaal' situation in Punjab.''
Is he going to repeat a similar exercise in future for his Hindi films too?
''Of course yes'', Jimmy is quick to respond, ''Given an opportunity, I would certainly repeat this. This was a first of it's kind of me and I couldn't believe it since such reactions were not just in one city but literally everywhere. I guess this is what the power of communication does to you and your film.''
Presented by EROS, TERA MERA KI RISHTA also boasts of prominent Bollywood names like Raj Babbar, Anupam Kher and Archana Puran Singh in supporting roles. The film is all set for a 10th April release.
