Actress plays the , which will take off towards the year-end
Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 11, 2016)

Vidya Balan has started 2016 on a high note. After wrapping up a special appearance in Sujoy Ghosh's TE3N, on January 28, the actress will now be working on three back-to-back projects till the year end.

Kahaani 2, Sujoy Ghosh's much-anticipated sequel to his 2012 thriller, rolls in April, and will be followed by the Hindi remake of the Bengali Partition drama, Rajkahini, which will mark National Award winning director Srijit Mukherji's Bollywood debut. Vidya will play Begum Jaan, the madam of a brothel, enacted by Rituparna Sengupta in the original.

The third project is the biopic on controversial author Kamala Das, for which Vidya is teaming up with Malayalam filmmaker Kamal. The film will take off towards the year-end.

The poet, columnist and author was known by various names, including Madhavi Kutty, after her marriage, and Kamala Surayya, after she converted to Islam at the age of 67. The three-part film traces her life story, starting with her marriage to a banker, Madhav, at the age of 15. He encouraged her to write, and her open and honest treatment of female sexuality made her an iconic author of her generation. The second part revolves around her autobiography, Ente Katha, which has been translated in English as My Story.

The third phase begins with her conversion to Islam at 67 and ends with her death at 75.

"Vidya is one of the first actresses who explored female sexuality unapologetically in films like Ishqiya and The Dirty Picture. She was the perfect choice for the role since the beginning. I first approached her for the Malayalam film but now we will be shooting it as a bilingual, in Malayalam and Hindi simultaneously," Kamal informed Mirror.

Incidentally, Kamal's drama, Chakram, was supposed to mark Vidya's Malayalam debut opposite South superstar Mohanlal in 2004. But the film was shelved after shooting began and Vidya went on to make a beginning in Bollywood with mentor Pradeep Sarkar's Parineeta.

Over a decade later, in November 2015, Kamal met Vidya. She was impressed with the script but was sifting through a dozen biopics and chose to not sign on the dotted line. But the director was certain that she'd give the nod and started his prep with only Vidya in mind. "She signed up last week," reveals a source, adding that the film will be shot in Germany, Spain and France, as Kamala travelled extensively in her quest for new-age poetry.

The actress, who is in Kolkata for an event, has already begun her prep. She is reading the writer's autobiography and searching for translated versions of her short stories published in Malayalam.