/> The supremely talented Padmini Kolhapure is all set for the biggest challenge of her career. She plays the singing diva Asha Bhosle's daughter in debutant director Mahesh Kadiyal's Maaeee.

In Abu Dhabi Padmini says, "You know, when the director came to me with this offer I had this strange feeling that it would be Ashaji who plays my mother. Don't ask me why. I mean why own earth would I feel that THE Asha Bhosle would be acting in a film with me? But when the director told me Ashaji had been signed to play the mother my hunch was proven right. "

Padmini is specially happy since she is very close to the Mangeshkar family and infact closely related to them.

Says Padmini happily, "I grew up in front of Lataji and Ashaji and I used to sing as a child. Though now I've lost practice. So to be facing the camera with Ashaji is a dream-come-true. When we met up about Aaaeee Ashaji teased me, 'You've to give me tips on acting for this film. '

She was of course kidding. Her entire family used to be into theatre acting. Both Lataji and Ashaji have faced the camera in their young days. So I turned around and told Ashaji, 'Fine I'll give you tips in acting, if you teach me how to sing. '"

Padmini is getting ready for what she calls the role of a life time. "There aren't too many such opportunities for actresses these days. And definitely not too many opportunities for anyone to play Ashaji's daughter.

She is a great mother in real life and has tremendous nurturing qualities. So I don't think playing a mother would be difficult for her. You know it was Ashaji who got me into acting. So it seems so right that I am sharing camera space with her now. "

Padmini has also completed her first Malayalam film, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet set in Kerala.

"These are not conventional I guess this is a good time to be an actress of a certain age in Hindi cinema, " she says happily. Asha Bhosle's elder sister Lata Mnageshkar did a brief stint as an actress when she was a child. Asha has never acted before.

She says she took the plunge into a virgin territory so late in her life because she identified with the subject and her son Anand urged her to take up the role. The fact that Padmini Kolhapure who is like a ghar ki beti was playing her daughter also helped Asha to make up her mind.