Tota Roy Chowdhury, Konkona Sen Sharma and Madhavan on the sets of Sunglass on Tuesday. Pictures by Aranya SenRituparno Ghosh

Floor no. 4, Technicians’ Studio. Chitra and Sanjoy are a married couple having supper at the dining table. In a black nightdress, Chitra, or Konkona Sen Sharma, chats with her husband — not one, but two. Sometimes it’s Bollywood hero Madhavan, sometimes it’s Tollywood’s Tota Roy Chowdhury.

Shooting for Rituparno Ghosh’s Sunglass began with a twist in the tale at Technicians’ Studio on Tuesday morning. The double version film, produced by Arindam Chaudhury’s Planman Motion Pictures, is being shot simultaneously in Hindi with Madhavan (who has replaced Sanjay Suri) and in Bengali with Tota as Konkona’s husband.

A comic take on today’s life with a pair of shades steering the storyline, Sunglass also stars Naseeruddin Shah as a curio shop-owner, and Jaya Bachchan as Konkona’s over-protective mother.

For Rituparno, and his cast and crew, Sunglass is a different game altogether. The Bengali scenes are being shot first for the technicians and actors to get a hang of things before following up with the Hindi takes. And even Madhavan, a seasoned actor in double version films, is finding it “different”.

“I have worked in several double version films in Tamil and Hindi… many of Mani Ratnam’s films. I had played Abhishek’s character in the Tamil version of Yuva. But there the locations were different. Here, I have to just watch and follow Tota. He is doing very well,” laughed Madhavan, who had been in Calcutta before to shoot for Tamil films.

But things are not that simple. “The disadvantage of such a set-up is that you get influenced by the other person. You see him doing something nice and you want to build on that. But if you see it from another angle, you just try to be as good as him,” explained Madhavan.

Tota, for instance, is ducking away from the scene of action when it’s Madhavan’s turn. “I am not watching his scenes because I don’t want to get influenced.”

But both agree that their characters differ from each other in some ways. “The characters are unconsciously different from each other, as Bengali and Hindi are two different sensibilities,” observed Tota.

“It’s not an elaborate character. The personalities are slightly different. After Dada (Rituparno) sets the tone with the Bengali version, I just need to find its Hindi equivalent,” echoed Madhavan, who is also working in Mani Ratnam’s Guru. He has two more Tamil films and a Hindi project with Sanjay Gupta lined up till the year-end.

At the centre of the double drama, Konkona is juggling both with ease. “I am not feeling any huge difference yet, we have had only one shot. I am just doing the same scene twice…,” said Omkara’s Indu, during the break. “My character is quite kyabla (naive). She is guided by her mother and depends on her advice for everything. In fact, I have never played a character like this,” she added.

“We felt that Sunglass had the scope to be made in Bengali and as well as for a national audience. It’s not a Bangla subject. The story could have been set in Mumbai instead of Calcutta. There’s the ease of understanding. It’s a completely family watch,” said Planman Motion Pictures CEO Subho Shekhar Bhattacharya.

Sunglass will be shot in three schedules between August and October, with outdoors in Sikkim, Darjeeling and the streets of Calcutta.

“We had to postpone the film twice because Jayaji couldn’t give dates before September. Sanjay (Suri) couldn’t adjust his dates this time, as he has to do the promotions for Bas Ek Pal directed by Onir. Then, Madhavan came into the picture just three-four days ago,” added Bhattacharya.

The Sunglass soundtrack comprises four songs — one will be lipsynced by Konkona, for which the Bosco-Caesar duo is doing the choreography. Gulzar will write the Hindi lyrics, while Rituparno has penned the Bengali songs. The music has been scored by the band 21 Grams, which also composed the soundtrack for Rituparno’s Dosor and Khela.