Aishwarya: Just a brush

London, Oct. 4: Aishwarya Rai and her fellow cast members of Bride & Prejudice were preparing today for the long-awaited world premiere of Gurinder Chadha?s ?10-million musical based loosely on Jane Austen?s classic Pride and Prejudice.

The focus of attention at tonight?s event will undoubtedly be Aishwarya, the former Miss World whose future career in the west will depend to a great extent on how well Bride & Prejudice does at the box office.

The cast includes a mixture of Indian and British Asian talent ? Naveen Andrews, Indira Varma, Namrata Shirodkar, Peeya Rai Choudhuri, Meghnaa, Nadira Babbar, Anupam Kher, Nitin Ganatra and Sonali Kulkarni. Since tonight is the big night, many are expected to attend, dressed in their most over the top outfits. In some senses, though Chadha has said this is a British homage to Bollywood, India, too, is on show at the most high-profile event since the start of Andrew Lloyd Webber?s Bombay Dreams.

In this film, Chadha has maintained many Indian sensibilities. There is, for example, less kissing than in her previous hit, Bend It Like Beckham, which has brought the jolly Sikh director global recognition.

Aishwarya does not kiss or get kissed, other than a chaste brush on the forehead from her leading man, Martin Henderson, the New Zealand-born Hollywood actor who plays Mr William Darcy to her Lalita Bakshi. The Bennet family of Hertfordshire become the Bakshis from Amritsar in Chadha?s adaptation.

Yesterday, at a news conference in London, Aishwarya was asked if there was any pressure from the studios to inject a bit of kissing ? Hollywood moghul Harvey Weinstein has, after all, picked up the film for release in America on Christmas Day.

Before either she or Chadha could reply, Henderson cut in with a humorous aside: ?No, (but) there was from me!?

As all and sundry burst out laughing, Aishwarya could be heard saying: ?Help!?

She was then asked: ?How do you feel about the prospect of your first Bollywood kiss??

To which Aishwarya gave a slightly evasive answer. ?Let?s see, we will cross that bridge when we come to it. There is not a rule against it (in Bollywood). There are Bollywood films that have kissing but it?s a personal choice (for the actor). There have been Bollywood movies with deep, passionate kissing but somehow down the line it changed. Now again there are some movies that have it. There are no definitions, it?s the way it?s been.?

Chadha spoke of her experience of working with Aishwarya. She told The Telegraph: ?In many ways, she is like I was when I was a young girl in Southall ? very innocent. Very Indian.?

Chadha?s husband Paul Mayeda Berges, who has a writing credit on the movie, confirmed: ?We would never ask her to do a kissing scene. It?s more romantic like that. In the final scene, he marries her but he would hardly kiss her in front of her family.?

He added jokingly: ?The only kissing scene, if you watch carefully, is in the credits, between myself and Gurinder.?

Bride and Prejudice is enjoying an elaborate launch in Britain. According to Alasdair Nicholson of Pathe, the distributors, 400 prints are being released, ?which is big and puts it on a par with something like Shrek II?.

There will also be six prints of the Hindi-language version, Balle, Balle, From Amritsar to LA.

There has been a nationwide poster campaign featuring images of Aishwarya and Henderson. A total of 2,500 buses around the country, nearly 900 of them in London, have also got the poster stuck on their sides.

Some of the buses are on routes which go through the ethnic areas of London such as Southall.

Tickets for the premiere and the aftershow party are at a premium.

For tonight?s premiere at the London Palladium, which has been decked out in Bollywood kitsch, guests have been given the following instruction: ?Dress exotic.?

The film is released in the UK and India on October 8. The first weekend?s box office takings in the UK will be critical.