(From left) Zuleikha Robinson, Tabu, Mira Nair, Kal Penn and Irrfan at Taj Bengal on Saturday. Picture by Aranya Sen

She believes in “now”. And so it doesn’t matter to her that most of her first choices ? Rani Mukherjee, Abhishek Bachchan, Anoushka Shankar, Rupa Ganguly ? do not figure in the final cast list of her “most personal project”, The Namesake. All set to roll in Calcutta for the next two weeks, the myriad cast and crew of the $ 9.6 million co-production of UTV Motion Pictures, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Japanese company Entertainment Farm, talked us through on Saturday.

Miraspeak

It’s really a great pleasure to come back home. I have not only been born in Bhubaneswar, I have spent 12 summers in Cornfield Road and Alipore, here in Calcutta. I happened to read The Namesake on a flight and I was so deeply inspired that I put two films on the backburner.

Here was Jhumpa Lahiri giving me the opportunity to do cinematically the life I have lived. When I asked her if I could make a film on her book, Jhumpa said she was “in ecstasy”. Sooni Taraporewala, my oldest friend and script collaborator, got cracking with the screenplay. I got hold of the most exquisite cast and shot for over a month in New York.

The greatest challenge for me is to bring alive two cities which I love and where I have lived for 20 years each. I want to capture the erudite, energetic and vital Calcutta. The film is a great love story with many layers and is also a modern pulse of the South Asian culture in New York City. I plan to shoot here for two weeks, take the summer off, edit the film in September, finish by mid-2006 and release the film by September.

Irrfan as Ashoke

It’s all destiny. I started my acting career with Mira Nair in Salaam Bombay and here I am working with her again. Incidentally, I read The Namesake two months back and was mesmerised by Jhumpa’s language. It is simple but it has a magical quality.

I found the character of Ashoke Ganguli very difficult to play. The character is so much at peace with himself. He is so responsible and supports his family in such a way that I wanted to learn from the character and apply it in my own life. There is a lot of Bengaliness to the character. The very rhythm is Bengali.

I have shot in Calcutta for Florian Gallenberger’s Shadows of Time. I think it’s quite easy to shoot here and hope to have a nice time.

Tabu the Bengali

When I read The Namesake, I immediately fell in love with Ashima. It was easy for me to see myself as her. I was fortunate to be able to play her. I see Ashima as so many things ? a wide range of emotions. She is strong, soft and all those things that Mira has added to her character.

In The Namesake, I have lots of Bengali dialogues and I thank director Goutam Ghose for helping me learn Bengali in Abar Aranye and even have me dubbing my lines myself. I love the Bengali language and I think I have a ear for it. I could have never imagined that I would get to play Bengali characters this often. You can’t get more Bengali than this (The Namesake). I am planning to take a break after the shooting is over.

I was slated to do Zoya Akhtar’s Luck By Chance. But it has been pushed back indefinitely and Mira has decided to help her out. Once the rest of the cast is finalised and the film gets rolling again, I will feature in it.

American desi

Though their names don’t really have India written all over them, both Kal Penn and Zuleikha Robinson (Gogol and his girlfriend-turned-spouse Moushumi Mazoomdar) do have some Indian roots.

“There are lots of parallels between me and my character as I was born and raised in New Jersey. There’s the generation gap and the added cultural gap,” said the lead actor of American Desi who is slated to play Clark Kent’s best friend in Superman Returns.

“There’s so much to do,” said Zuleikha about playing Moushumi. Her recent screen achievement has been playing Al ‘Shylock’ Pacino’s daughter in the screen version of The Merchant of Venice.

The Calcuttans

After many rounds of auditions, the lucky few from town to make it to the Mira Nair camp were announced. To start with, Supriya Chowdhury plays Ashima’s grandmother. “I watch Ritwik Ghatak all the time and it’s such an honour to cast Supriya Devi from his Meghe Dhaka Tara,” said Mira.

The rest of the team includes Sabyasachi Chakraborty and Tanusree Shankar as Ashima’s parents, Tamal Sengupta and Ruma Guha Thakurta as Ashoke’s parents, Dhruv Mukherjee as Ashima’s brother and Jagannath Guha as Ghosh, a stranger whom Ashoke befriends on a train journey.

“I think the film is about very down-to-earth emotions which any Bengali woman can identify with,” said Tanusree.

“My character is a typical Bengali mother,” said Ruma, for whom Mira’s parting words were: read between the lines. “My main scene is one where I go to see a girl for my son. I re-appear 10 years later,” said Tamal.

Jhumpa Lahiri will play a cameo as “Jhumpa mashi”, and both her families (in New York and Calcutta) will appear in the film.