Post-Omkara, Konkona Sen Sharma is now part of yet another Bollywood biggie. In a Yash Raj film, to be directed by Pradeep Parineeta Sarkar, she plays younger sister to Rani Mukherjee. Jaya Bachchan and Anupam Kher will be their parents; the men in their lives are Abhishek Bachchan (for Rani) and Kunal Kapoor (for Konkona).

“We three short women (Rani, Jaya and Konkona), and look at the men (Abhishek and Kunal)!” exclaims Konkona, on the sets of Rituparno Ghosh’s Sunglass.

“It’s about two sisters. The family lives in Varanasi but they move to Mumbai for various reasons. Rani is the main protagonist. This film’s a little different, it’s something that reminds you of the 1970s and 80s,” she adds.

Wrapping up Sunglass on November 10, Konkona will have to rush to Varanasi the following day for the Yash Raj shoot. “I have seen Parineeta and I quite liked the film. So when Yash Raj approached me I thought of doing it. Vidya Balan was supposed to do the role but there was a date problem,” says Konkona.

Also in Bollywood, she has done a special appearance in Madhur Bhandarkar’s Traffic Signal. “I play a streetwalker. It’s way out for me and I don’t know how Madhur convinced me to do that role. But I trusted him... Page 3 worked well for me and Madhur. Initially I wasn’t comfortable at all while shooting. The way my character talks, there’s a lot of abuse and in Mumbaiyya Hindi, and she wears garish, tight clothes… But after dubbing, I felt it was okay,” says Konkona.

After Omkara, she has been busy shooting for Anurag Basu’s Metro. “It is about life in Mumbai. Shilpa Shetty is my sister and Kangana Ranaut my roommate. Irrfan is opposite me,” she rattles off.

But isn’t working in a multi-starrer daunting? “I don’t think like that. You can’t work if you think like that. And it’s not in our hands. How a film shapes up is entirely up to the director. You can only do very good work, so that they want to keep it (your portion),” she smiles.

Back in Tollywood, her “dual role” in Sunglass has floored Rituparno, who feels the Hindi-Bengali double bill is turning out to be two different films. “Rituda told me about that… but this is not something I have consciously done. For me it’s just another take in Hindi. But I think the film is turning out to be two different performances because the stimulus is different, cultural references are different,” she reasons.

And no, no other film-maker from her home town apart from Rituparno has approached her. “There were some talks with Anjan Dutt but it didn’t work out. I would love to do a film with him… He’s a good actor, he did Yuganta, I have heard him sing…,” she trails off, before returning to the Sunglass shoot at Technicians Studio.