Subhash K Jha (DNA; May 13, 2014)

Sushant Singh Rajput’s leading lady in Detective Byomkesh is being kept under wraps. That’s the way Yash Raj Films likes to keep their projects. However, one learns from a source working on the film that he is paired with Swastika Mukherjee in this period film.

Swastika is best known to create quite a hungama in the Kolkata media — both through her bold role (in a Bangla film titled Take One about an MMS scandal) and her bindaas statements. The never-say-no actress had many steamy scenes with her co-star.

Apparently, director Dibakar Banerjee and Yash Raj Films want to keep Swastika’s no-holds-barred image in check. Says the source, “Out there in Bengal, Swastika has a very bold image. In Dibakar’s film, Swastika plays a traditional Bengali housewife.” The effort, we hear, is to repackage Swastika’s image for her Hindi debut as “more of Sharmila and less of Bipasha.” Sushant is living in with his girlfriend Ankita Lokhande, with whom he is rumoured to be married, and with this film he gets an onscreen wife as well.