This has got to be a first. A Salman Khan starrer, "Shaadi Kar Ke Phas Gaya Yaar", awaiting release for months, has been quickly remade in Tamil by its director Adhiyamaan and released even before the Hindi version could hit the theatres.

The film "Priyasakhi", about a squabbling newly married couple, features popular leading lady Sada with Tamil superstar Madhavan (who incidentally is all set to return to Hindi films with the comedy "Ramji Londonwale").

The film opened all over Tamil Nadu last Friday to huge crowds.

So what happened to the original Hindi version? Both Salman and Shilpa Shetty speak very highly of it.

"It is a really funny take on marriage. The couple in the film just fight and fight. You don't know what they are fighting about. But you can't help laughing and crying with them," Salman had once said about his unreleased film.

Madhavan, who is very excited about his first Tamil release in over a year, agrees with Salman.

"You know, the best thing about this married couple is that both of them look so real in their fights," feels Madhavan. "Priyasakhi", he says, is like audiences peeping into a newly married couple's bedroom.

"I have done Mani Rathnam's 'Alai Payuthe' earlier, about a newly married couple's desperate attempts to set up a home, at the very start of my career."

But "Alai Payuthe" (remade into the Hindi "Saathiya") was a very different experience from "Priyasakhi". Madhavan says: "This one is in much lighter vein. It is about a marriage, but still a very young film."

Madhavan admits he has drawn a lot from his own marriage in "Priyasakhi".

"My wife Sarita and I have gone through a lot of the emotions that I portrayed with Sada in this film. And now that we are going to be parents in a month, I feel retrospection at a new marriage has taken my life back a full circle."

The Tamil star, who has other big releases in the form of "Thambi" and the Hindi film "Ramji Londonwale" lined up in the next two months, cannot understand why the Hindi version of "Priyasakhi" didn't get released.

He remarked: "I feel Adhiyamaan is one of the most gifted directors of this country. He had worked with Salman in his first Hindi film 'Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam'. So it was only natural if he went back to him for 'Shaadi Kar Ke Phans Gaya Yaar'. I feel sorry especially since it would have been released long before the Tamil version. Hindi audiences don't know what they are missing out on."

The reasons given for the delay of the Hindi version range from the producers' financial problems to Salman's legal troubles.

Whatever the reason, the sufferer is the poor Adhiyamaan who quickly scampered off to home territory and filmed his script in Tamil. This has been fortuitous for Madhavan as "Priyasakhi" looks like another hit in his bag.