According to the fans the credit goes to their acting skills. While cynics are laying on their engagement timing. Whatever the reason, there is no denying tills are ringing at the Box Office as Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai have finally scored together on screen.

Guru has officially broken the January jinx of Bollywood flops and given Mani Ratnam his first Hindi hit. As the film's cinematographer, Rajiv Menon, said from Chennai, "The film is doing the best in Bengal, along with Mumbai and the South."

Guru's east India distributor Shree Venkatesh's Mahendra Soni confirms this, "The net collections have been Rs 80 lakh from the 17 prints, with an average occupancy of 80 per cent."

At multiplexes, the figure is even higher with the city's most popular plex INOX (Forum) registering an average of 85 per cent occupancy in the first 10 days. Says general manager Vikas Syal, "Despite not being a family film per se, Guru has done really well. More than the wedding announcement, I think it is the positive word-of-mouth publicity that is at work."

Exhibitor Arijit Dutta points out that Guru is the first film since Black, back in February 2005, that has done better in the second week. "Guru collected Rs 7.5 lakh in the first week at Priya and we expect to close the second week at Rs 9 lakh," he says.

Venkatesh's Soni is adding more prints of Guru in the coming weeks despite Salaam-E-Ishq hitting theatres this Thursday with its star packed bill. "The number of Guru prints will go up to 20 to meet public demand," says the local distributor. "It is the first hit of 2007 and new releases notwithstanding, it will continue to do well at the box-office."