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Mira Nair’s Namesake was released in India in 2007. The shooting of the film began sometime in April 2005 initially in Kolkatta and later in New York. It is fifteen years since the film released and is still a big draw at film festivals looking at Indians in foreign space. The film is especially relevant in present times when people have not been able to travel to meet family residing overseas. I remember meeting Tabu during the shooting of this film and she had said that the story of Namesake will always touch a raw nerve as long as we have families living away from us. Excerpts:

You had been in talks with dire4ctor Mira Nair for a different film if I remember right?
That’s right, Mira and I had been meeting on and off over the last few years and bounced a couple of ideas. Both of us were keen to work together but nothing concrete ever came out of these meetings or conversations. At one point, it seemed like one of the ideas both of us liked, was going to work out, but even that fizzled out at the last minute. So, for a while we stopped meeting, assuming that our time to work together had not come as yet. Then one day, while I was shooting in Hyderabad for a South film, I get a call from Mira and she says that the Namesake casting had fallen out and would I play the main part?

To be continued