Mir, Swastika and (below) Dibyendu shoot for Nandini in a Salt Lake resto bar. Pictures by Aranya Sen

Three years after Bibar, director Subrata Sen is back on the floors with Nandini, a tale of love and deceit starring Swastika Mukherjee, Mir and singer-turned-actor Dibyendu (who has sung for Aa Dekhen Zara, Ugly Aur Pagli and the recent Jodi Ekdin). Shooting began last week at Shimmers, the resto bar in Salt Lake’s Sector V, and Subrata plans to wind up in another 10 days!

The film revolves around a “beautiful housewife”, Nandini (Swastika), who gets involved with a suave fashion photographer (Dibyendu) from Mumbai she meets at the pub. Her husband (Mir) has very little time for her.

But don’t mistake Nandini to be the same old tale of an extramarital affair, cautions Swastika. “Because though Nandini falls for another man, she doesn’t stop loving her husband. Instead she starts loving him even more and yet at the same time she is romantically involved with the other man,” says Swastika, taking a break during a shot change. “It’s great fun working with Mir and Dibyendu. I have never worked with them and the way they emote and react is so different,” she adds.

Waiting for his cue sitting on a bar stool with a glass of fruit juice, Dibyendu says, “This is the first time I am acting in a film and it’s good fun! Besides, I can identify with my character. When I was younger I would go for gigs at pubs and eye pretty women, just like in the film. But now I don’t anymore, I have matured!”

As Subrata readies the next shot, Mir has everyone in splits with a trademark one-liner: “Pour some ‘rosh’ in my glass!”. A crew member promptly pours some fresh juice into his glass to be passed off as wine for the film.

“I play a very laid-back character, but this man loves his wife. Did you know that Subrata had done a telefilm on this subject long ago? It was called Shirin-Ra. I had played the other man in Shirin’s life there and now I am the husband. Life has come full circle!” he quips.

So, is it an easy job for him? “Not really, because in the telefilm I didn’t get the girl and here I have the girl. Besides, Swastika is a different cup of coffee altogether,” he laughs out loud with Swastika smiling pretty beside him.

Koel gets busy with Hiran

GIRL ABOUT TOWN: Koel Mullick and Hiran, who play friends-turned-sweethearts, shoot for Sujit Guha’s Mon Je Kore Uru Uru at HHI. They were joined by Sourav, who is doing a cameo in the film. Mon Je Kore Uru Uru and Raj Chakraborty’s Dui Prithibi are keeping Koel on her toes these days. “I was mentally prepared for this. I knew that I had to work double shifts,” chirped Koel, dressed as Diya in a canary yellow dress. “It’s a restaurant sequence where Diya meets Hiran, her best buddy,” she added. Pictures by Aranya Sen