You'll be surprised, Aamir hasn't seen the film yet. Because he's been so deeply involved in The Rising that even during the release of the film -- pre and post -- he was involved only in The Rising.

There are at least four times, he came close to watching the film but couldn't. I hope he'll see it now. He wrote to me saying he would see it at a later stage.

Had Aamir been the film's producer, do you think he could have persuaded you to reduce the length?

No. Even Lagaan (Aamir Khan in the film, above) was 3 hours 42 minutes. They were a lot of feelers coming (then) to Aamir as producer from other producers who were well wishers who said: 'Lambi picture nahin chalti, you must cut it'.

I was doing the background music in Chennai and Aamir would call me and ask, 'Ash, these are the kind of reactions I'm getting, should we cut it? I feel we should cut it, distributors are saying -- 'Teen shows mein picture chalegi.'

I would constantly tell Aamir that this is the film we've made and there should be no adjustments for anybody else because I was not going to remove this or that scene.