Amitabh Bachchan is literally giving the film's producer Arindam Chaudhari sleepless nights while shooting for Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear in Kolkata, and is.

Before leaving for the schedule, Bachchan made it clear that he would only shoot if he was accommodated in the Presidential Suite of the ITC Sonar Bangla, and that his Man Friday Pravin, make-up man Deepak Sawant, dietician and physical trainer were to be accommodated in special suites in the same hotel!

A source from Kolkata says, "Chaudhari was flabbergasted when he heard Mr Bachchan's demands. Ideally, he would have preferred that Mr Bachchan's coterie stay in a lesser grade hotel or at the very least in cheaper rooms in the same hotel. Chaudhari could have tried to reason with or bargain had it been any other actor, but he had to succumb to Mr Bachchan's demands."

When Chaudhari made his displeasure evident to the film's director Rituparno Ghosh, he asked him to overlook the expenses and ignore the issue lest Bachchan backed out. Ghosh has Bachchan's dates only for a few days and did not want the schedule to go haywire because of this.

When contacted, Chaudhari says that Mr Bachchan is not staying in the Presidential Suite because Thailand's Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn is occupying the same.

"We would have loved to have Mr Bachchan in the Presidential Suite, unfortunately, that suite is not vacant. So we have put him up in a special suite," he says.

But a call to ITC Sonar Bangla put things in perspective. An official from the reservation desk reveals, "Mr Bachchan is staying in the Presidential Suite. He moved in as soon as the Thai princess vacated it. As for Mr Bachchan's staff, they've been put up in different rooms. Some are standard rooms, while others are deluxe rooms and special suites."

The source goes on to add that this isn't the first time Mr Bachchan has made unreasonable demands. "He recently travelled to London for a photo shoot with a glossy there and demanded similar treatment for himself and his staff.

But while he was put up at the best hotel, the organisers put their foot down and accommodated his staff in a mediocre hotel in Piccadilly.