Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma who is courting controversy for going ahead with his remake of 1975 mega film 'Sholay' has finally found his two leading ladies- Nisha Kothari and Sushmita Sen.

Nisha will play Hema Malini's character Basanti and Sen will essay the role portrayed by Jaya Bachchan.

However, their names and settings would be different. The original film had a rural background while Ramu's movie is based in Mumbai.

Basanti will be Ghunghroo in RGV's version and will ride a autorickshaw and not 'tanga'. The autorickshaw will be called Laila while Hema Malini's horse was called 'Dhanno',who became equally famous like the Basanti character in the original.

Sen's character will be called Devi while Jaya was Radha,the widowed daughter-in-law of Thakur (Sanjeev Kumar). Sen is the widowed sister-in-law of Inspector Ranbeer (Mohan Lal).

In the original, Basanti and Radha have never met. But, in Ramu's film, both women are best of friends.

Giving the character sketches of the two women, Varma's spokesman said Ghungroo is Mumbai city's only woman rickshaw driver. She calls her vehicle 'Laila' who is her best friend and confidante. She often solves a dilemma by voicing it to Laila.

Ghungroo lives adjacent to Inspector Ranbeer's house with her mother who is an agressive,hard nosed fisherwoman,locally known as Gangu Mummy. Her father who himself was rickshaw driver has lost his leg in an accident.

She spends most of her money she earns, into doing up the interior of her rickshaw. With all the accessories it has accumulated so far, it resembles a room rather than a rickshaw. A large image of Durga is stickered to the back window of the rickshaw.

Devi's happiness proved to be shortlived as just few months after her marriage to Ranbeer's brother,the inspector's entire family is massacred by a ruthless gangster (Gabbar played by Amitabh Bachchan).

Devi who is a trained nurse runs a clinic and understands Ranbeer's need to take revenge on the gangster but she feels he is very impractical in expecting someone else especially two seemingly good for nothing nobodies to take his war as their own.

Ramu said one of the two men (Jai played by Mohit Alawat) is drawn to her stoic dignity and silent strength. Her focus on things makes him see purpose. He is awed with her larger than life perspective towards life and her ability to see positiveness in most of the negative of things.

The first schedule of the film shooting is already complete. The spokesman refused to comment on the issue of Sippys going to court against the remake of the film. The matter is sub-judice and Mr Varma will not want to comment on the issue, the spokesman added.