Raima Sen and Soha Ali Khan in Santiniketan on Sunday. Pictures by Pradip Sanyal

They have never met, but they are bound by a common thread of things past and present. For Raima Sen and Soha Ali Khan, who have inherited royalty from their fathers and filmdom from their mothers, being in Santiniketan for the first time is like rediscovering themselves.

The two will soon share screen space in a feel-good film, Dil Maange More, where they can be themselves — GeneratioNext. For now, cast by Buddhadeb Dasgupta and Anjan Das, Raima and Soha find themselves in roles far removed from their sensibilities, in a rough, brick-red landscape far removed from their contemporary worlds.

If Moon Moon Sen’s elder daughter is thrilled to see classes being held under the green canopy; Sharmila Tagore’s youngest child is excited to shoot her debut film in a setting where she has “a part of the family”. If 24-year-old Raima dreams of sending her children to Patha Bhavan, 25-year-old Soha wants to spend more time here, learning about the “philosophy and values” of her Thakurbari legacy.

Their lineage is unmissable —if Raima taking a stroll down Sonajhuri bears an uncanny resemblance with grandmother Suchitra Sen, the dark, Devi-like eyes of Soha (presently playing Saratchandra Chattopadhyay’s Kamallata, made famous by Suchitra) are so obviously Sharmila’s. And the curiosity to turn the pages of the past in a place both have heard “so much” about from their mothers and grandmothers is a shared passion.

“Is that the robe he (Rabindranath Tagore) used to wear?” asks Raima, after a walk around the Tagore museum on Saturday afternoon. Despite the sun blazing down and the puffs of dust with every step, she saunters across the Visva-Bharati campus, often peering over the shoulders of students squatting on the ground to catch a glimpse of their sketches. Everything seems to leave the Chokher Bali star enamoured.

The enchantment with Santiniketan shines through in Soha as well, despite the hectic overnight shoot schedule. On the sets of Das’ Ebong Srikanta, she potters about, dabs some mosquito repellent on her arms and mutters her lines in broken Bengali. As dusk sets in, the post-graduate from London School of Economics comes alive as Kamallata — a Vaishnavi in pristine white sari, with tulsi beads around her neck and chandan smudged on forehead — at home in her aatchala hut, amidst the thatched roofs, terracotta temple and cowshed.

“When I am off from the shoot, I want to go around Tagore’s ashram and see that part of my family,” says the voracious reader, who counts Gitanjali among her favourite books. At the Purba Palli address, which is home for the next few weeks, Pico Iyer’s Abandon and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude keep her company.

Back at Camellia, the resort where the Projector crew has put up, Raima is spending her idle hours playing pool, table tennis and carrom with her co-stars and the waiters, and waiting for her mother for them to go “shopping, sight-seeing and catching up with relatives” together.