Mirror (February 11) was the first to report that after wrapping up Srijit Mukherji's Begum Jaan and Sujoy Ghosh's Kahaani sequel Vidya Balan will start filming for the Kamala Das biopic to be directed by Malayalam filmmaker Kamal. She has begun her prep, which includes reading the writer's autobiography and training under Malayalam actress, SreeDhanya to get the diction right. The film will highlight the phase in the controversial poet-litterateur's conversion to Islam at the age of 65 and subsequent change of name to Kamala Surayya to oblige her lover. Kamal reveals that he has fictionalised the character of the lover with Malayali actor Anoop Menon playing Sadiq Ali who will be seen singing two Urdu songs for Kamala Das in the film, penned by veteran lyricist and screenwriter Gulzar.

“Sadiq in the film is an Islamic Urdu scholar and a professor at Delhi's Jamia Millia University. He's into Urdu ghazals and there are two songs about life and romance, penned by Gulzar saab, which he will be singing to Vidya,“ informs Kamal.

When Mirror caught up with Gulzar at the director's master-class on Saturday, a monthly initiative held by Indian Film and Television Directors' Association (IFTDA), the 82-year-old poet-lyricist-writer confirmed the news saying that tabla maestro Zakir Hussain's bother and percussionist Taufiq Qureshi would compose the tracks.

“This Urdu-speaking character who is a ghazal singer and sings Sufiyana impresses Kamala Das and she gets into a relationship with him. Going by the script and the character, I have worked on two compositions,“ says Gulzar, who returns to screenplay writing after 17 years with Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Mirzya which marks the acting debuts of Harshvardhan Kapoor and Saiyami Kher.

Prod him on whether he now wants to write more films and he retorts that if someone were to ask him, he might. But he is quick to add that he doesn't want to write anything unless there is something new to talk about and it's a subject worth probing.

Meanwhile, Kamal was to start shooting the biopic from October 5 but the shoot has been pushed forward to October-end to give Vidya time to recover from dengue. “We will start shooting in Kerala first, followed by Mumbai and Kolkata. Kamalaji's children will be on the set for the first few days,“ he concludes.