Director Shankar and actor Vijay were conspicuous by their absence at the recent audio-launch of actor Jeeva’s ‘Rowthiram’. Shankar is presentlydirecting ‘Nanban’ (a remake of Bollywood superhit film ‘3 Idiots’) which stars Vijay, Jeeva and Srikanth in lead roles. As such, Jeeva was expected to have hit it off with Vikram and Shankar and the crew of the film.

It is rumoured in Kollywood circles that R.B Chowdhury, noted producer and father of actor Jeeva, was ‘upset’ that Shankar and Vijay didn’t attend the audio-launch. Queries with sources close to actor Jeeva, however, revealed a very different story.

Jeeva reportedly shot for ‘Nanban’ in Chennai a day prior to the audio-launch of ‘Rowthiram’. With the audio-launch of ‘Rowthiram’ fixed for the next evening, staff of Gemini Labs, who have taken over the distribution of the film, reportedly invited all the crew members of ‘Nanban’ to finish the day’s shooting and then attend the audio-launch in the evening.

Incidentally, ‘Nanben’ is also being produced by Gemini Labs. The trio of Shankar, Vijay and Ileana (who plays Vijay’s heroine in the film) agreed to attend the audio-launch but didn’t turn up the next day. The reason is simple: they obviously expected Jeeva, who had been shooting with them for ‘Nanban’, to formally invite them at least once for the audio-launch which didn’t happen.

Therefore, Shankar and his two lead actors decided to give the function a miss!