SRK to marry Rituparna!

King Khan & Tolly queen play man and wife in ad film

This Mahasaptami, Shah Rukh Khan will be married to Rituparna Sengupta.

Before you go into shock (or awe), let us set things straight. Bollywood’s Hero No. 1 and Tollywood’s Heroine No. 1 will play husband and wife for a product promotion to be shot in Mumbai’s Filmcity on Friday.

SRK will play a common man and Rituparna his homemaker wife. And the (Ayurvedic) magic potion that keeps them together? Chyawanprash, from the stable of Calcutta-based Emami Group.

“Both of them are our brand ambassadors, and so we thought pairing them would be the perfect marriage for the brand,” said Emami director Aditya Agarwal. “Shah Rukh will provide the national connect while Rituparna will provide the regional connect.”

The superstar with more than a national connect is learnt to be happy at the prospect of working with the regional rage, continuing his long tradition of romancing Bengali beauties on screen, from Kajol to Rani.

“Shah Rukh has seen Rituparna’s work in Main Meri Patni Aur Woh and also remembers her coming to Eden Gardens to support his Kolkata Knight Riders team in the first IPL season,” said a source. “He okayed the concept of the commercial at one go.”

Rituparna, too, did not waste time before saying ‘I do’.

“I am very excited but I am very nervous too,” she admitted. “I will be shooting with the Shah Rukh Khan. I am a huge fan of his.... Plus, I have recently done a film titled SRK with Vinay Pathak. And now, I will be shooting with SRK himself!”

Rituparna, who will be going to Mumbai on Tuesday for a pre-shoot session, is now busy juggling Bolly and Tolly, with shooting on for Priyadarshan’s untitled film co-starring Akshaye Khanna, Ajay Devgan and Bipasha Basu.

Shah Rukh is dividing his work time between the last schedule of Karan Johar’s My Name is Khan and shooting lots of advertisements as part of his brand commitments.

The Chyawanprash ad film will be directed by Ram Madhvani of Equinox Films, who shot the Bheja kum song in Taare Zameen Par, and is also slated to direct Amitabh Bachchan in the forthcoming Vidhu Vinod Chopra production Taalismaan.

“I have seen her in a couple of Bengali films apart from Main Meri Patni Aur Woh,” said Madhvani.

“I think she is just fantastic and I am really looking forward to working with her for the first time. I have worked with Shah Rukh before and the two of them would make an unusual but good pairing,” he added, from Mumbai.

The SRK-RS commercial will go on air from end-October. Star Bollywood photographer Dabboo Ratnani will shoot the stills.