After three unsuccessful attempts since the start of the year, the second season of Masaba Masaba has finally gone on floors. Leading man Neil Bhoopalam heaved a sigh of relief as the team kicked off the project in Mumbai last week. After all, it was the actor’s second show — besides Four More Shots Please 3 — that had suffered due to the lockdowns. “Usually, I can keep myself occupied with other things. But after the second lockdown, I was beginning to lose the plot. There was a lack of purpose because I was not able to do what I do for a living. I had a nagging feeling of emptiness,” he says.

The actor felt alive again when he began the readings with co-stars Masaba Gupta, Neena Gupta and Rytasha Rathore. “When the costume trials happened, the realisation dawned on me that the ship is finally sailing. Now that I have returned to the set, the fear is of bringing the virus home.” With reports suggesting that the possible third wave may affect children, Bhoopalam — father to four-year-old Fateh — is understandably anxious.

The pandemic finds no mention in the second season of the Netflix biographical drama as the material was developed before the world came to a standstill. But depicting a pre-COVID world in the post-COVID era is no mean feat. “Trying to stick to the pre Coronavirus pandemic structure poses many challenges. Shooting hours have reduced; so, what would ordinarily be done in a day, is now taking longer.”