/> Rahul Bose is very excited about his first children's film to be directed by Tamara Nidungadi who's Ken Ghosh's assistant.

"Ken will be a creative consultant on the project. Children are a constituency I've never spoken to before. I've been waiting to do a film for children. It's part of my new leave-no-genre untried policy.

This one is exciting because I get to play the captain of the Indian cricket team. It's a funny warm and sentimental film. There's a brood of children in the film."

" In fact," Rahul deadpans, "there was a huge tug 'o' war between me and the child protagonist as to who would play the young lead. I lost because he was taller. But I still say I look younger, ha ha."

Of late Rahul has been spending a lot of time with his ten-year old niece Alya. "I used a lot of my father's personality to play the father to two children in Buddhadeb Das Gupta's Kaal Purush. Like my dad, my character was a very nurturing and tactile father.

And now in this children's film, growing up with Alya has kept me totally in touch with how young minds work. I feel essentially all young minds have remained the same. They love anything that challenges the law of nature.

Through Alya I'm fully clued into young minds. Alya is part of my heart. And I certainly will bring my experiences with her into my role."

When I suggest Rahul needs to marry and have his own children, he shakes his head. "Alya is like my own child. I've tremendous amounts of time on my own traveling for my films or to play rugby. The time back home in Mumbai is now spent with my sister and niece.

There's no vaccum in me because I feel love can be tapped and found anywhere....Whether it's my rugby friends or my dad up in the hills of Kasauli, where's the shortage of love?"

And sex? "I'm not entirely sure what that means," Rahul deadpans some more.

As for his friendship with Nandita, "We had to call off our torrid affair due to intense media pressure. The media created differences where earlier there were none."