Milan Bhowmik, Koneenica Banerjee, Shilajit and Ashutosh Rana exchanging notes between shots and (below) the director frames a shot with cinematographer Raja Bose with Ashutosh, Abhishek and Shilajit. Photographs by Santanu Chakraborty

It?s Milan Bhowmik again, folks, pulling another rabbit out of the hat. This time it?s with the casting of Ashutosh Rana, an actors? actor out there in Bollywood, in the title role of his (Ashutosh?s) first Bengali film, Babumoshai. When Milan had told us more than a month ago, we preferred to wait and ?scoop? the news (for the sake of credibility), but the messy mahurat of the film at a Calcutta studio did show a strapping smart guy. But who knows if it was Ashutosh Rana for real? When Milan ferried us to Falta exclusively and we touched Ashutosh Rana and squeezed and shook his hand, we had got to believe Milan Bhowmik!

Managing the crowds and the framing and lighting and polite conversation with guests and NG shots ? ?Not Good? in film parlance, meaning the take is cancelled and not to go for printing ? for various reasons, Milan was managing to push things along at a snappy pace. He was keen to get the maximum out of Ashutosh?s dates, one good reason he wasn?t inviting the press to the shoots.

Apart from Ashutosh, the starcast was the same as Milan?s earlier film, Maayer Pratigya, still to be completed, where he had arranged another casting coup, pitting Rituparna Sengupta and Rachana Banerjee together, with Shilajit and Jishu Sengupta. This one, Babumoshai, had the same gang of four (no, three), with Jishu replaced by Abhishek. That was something again, because the whole world, or at least Tollywood, knew that Abhishek and Ritu were quite an item and their break had been more than just dramatic. For some strange reason, Ritu didn?t turn up for the mahurat, raising some eyebrows and Milan ducking the queries. But Ritu did turn up for the shoot the next day, and was readying herself with makeup, and then learnt that Abhishek was cast opposite her. Naturally, she felt shortchanged, and upped and outed from the film there and then.

In came Koneenica Banerjee, who not only survived the blockbuster bomb, Abar Aashbo Phire, but impacted the audience max on the big screen. And she was here, shooting with Ashutosh Rana! The small screen star carries herself very well now and wasn?t a little pleased with Ashutosh?s compliment about her spoken Hindi. ?Maybe because I watch a lot of Hindi serials,? she beamed. Koneenica revealed that she was rung up late the previous night, and agreed. ?But I didn?t want to get into any mess professionally, so I rang up Ritudi and she said she had no problem.? Milan himself had told us earlier, ?Ritu can?t be replaced by anyone, but unfortunately she had date problems.? Smile, please, okay!

While we are at this all, Ashutosh is busy concentrating on his Bangla and readily taking tidy linguistic tips from that demon for work, Shilajit, who maintains a punishing run from shoots and stage programmes in the tedious interiors. It was great watching Shilajit and Ashutosh retreating from the scene, sitting across each other and Ashutosh, script in hand, using him as a sounding board.