Tabu and Mira Nair on the Calcutta leg of Namesake

“A seesaw of two great cities of the world, New York and Calcutta”, The Namesake, which has an Indian co-producer in UTV, was shot for two weeks in the city, in May-June 2005. On January 30, a good two months before the film releases in the US and India, the majority of The Namesake cast and crew, headed by Mira, will be present for the premiere at Priya cinema hall.

Author Jhumpa Lahiri (in town for the annaprashan of her second child Noor), who has a special appearance in the film as “Jhumpamashi”, will be present at the Deshapriya Park theatre with family on Tuesday evening.

While the lead pair of Irrfan and Tabu, who play Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli in the film, have confirmed their presence, Kal Penn, who plays Gogol, “may not make it”. The Namesake producer Lydia Dean Pilcher will also make her way to Priya.

But the stars will share the spotlight with local members of Team Namesake. “We have been asked to invite every technician involved with the Calcutta leg of the shooting, right up to the head carpenter and travel arrangers,” says Arijit Dutta, owner of Priya.

The local artistes expected to be present at the premiere include Supriya Devi, Tanusree Shankar, Ruma Guha Thakurta, Jagannath Guha, Tamal Roy Chowdhury and Kharaj Mukherjee, plus Kartik Das Baul and Lakkhan Das Baul from Bolpur.

The premiere was initially planned at Star theatre but Tuesday being Muharram, Priya won.