Dia Mirza's Bong connection

Not many people know that Dia Mirza is half-Bengali. The fact that Dia Mirza, who has been busy working on her first regional film Paanch Adhyay directed by Pratim D Gupta, wanted to dub her lines herself should not come as a surprise. After all, the actress is half-Bengali in real life. Despite not having a great command over Bangla, she wants to go ahead with the task.

Says Dia, "I would say my Bangla was decent before I filmed Paanch Adhyay. Post filming and while spending time in Kolkata, conversing with so many people during my time there, it has only become better. I still would like to learn to think in Bangla."

Dia, whose mother is a Bengali, plays Ishita, an English school teacher, in the film co-starring Priyanshu Chatterjee and the legendary Soumitra Chatterjee. And while several Bollywood beauties have in the past made their presence felt in Bengali cinema, for Dia this project seems more than just another film.

"My character travels through the ups and downs of marriage and the poignancy of love - lost and found," adds Dia. Interestingly, all of her contemporaries who have done Bengali cinema took the help of voice artistes for their films including Aishwarya Rai (Choker Bali), Manisha Koirala (Khela) to Bipasha Basu (Shob Choritro Kalponik).

The actress adds, "I am looking to expand my horizons. Bangla is my mother tongue and it makes it all the more special that my first regional film is in Bengali." The film, which has music by Shantanu Moitra, is currently in post-production and is eyeing a late summer release this year in Bengal and other metro cities. u00a0