(bottom) Rituparna and Samadarshi take a boat ride on the Ganga for a romantic scene

The quaint city of Varanasi played host to director Pinaki Chaudhuri and his cast and crew in January for the shoot of his film Arohan. With the Ganga as the backdrop, Rituparna Sengupta turned into a Hindi-speaking housewife and flirted with a young NRI (played by Samadarshi). “It was my first time in Varanasi and I met all our relatives there. I loved the Ganga. I was a student of history, so the old houses of Varanasi and their stories of maharajas fascinated me,” said Rituparna. The Arohan cast featured Soumitra Chatterjee as the protagonist, Sandhya Roy as his wife, Siddhartha Chatterjee as his son and Samadarshi as his grandson. Arohan is based on a lodging house in Varanasi where people come to spend their last days in the belief that it will help them attain moksha.