/> While Mira Nair finished her Tabu-Kal Penn-Irrfan Khan starrer Namesake she quickly and quietly slipped in to work for her pending assignment—an American version of Raj Kumar Hirani's incredibly successful Munnabhai MBBS.

The 20th Century Fox film will star Black -American superstar Chris tucker (star of the successful Rush Hour series) in the role that Sanjay Dutt has almost immortalized. While the rest of the cast is being finalized, Jason Filardi (who wrote the goofy Adam Sandler comedy Bringing Down The House) has been penciled in to pen the screenplay.

Interestingly the film entitled Gangsta MD will turn Dutt's Munnabhai from the Maharashtrian middleclass illiterate into a dude from a Black-American ghetto.

The Mira Nair Hollywood version of Munnabhai comes at a time when Raj Kumar Hirani is ready with the sequel Lage Raho Munnabhai.

Although the Tamil and Telugu versions of Munnabhai MBBS starring Kamal Haasan and Chiranjeevi turned out to be self-serving star vehicles for their principal lead, Hirani is pleased at the prospect of Mira Nair taking over his vision for a wider international market.

Says Hirani, "I think Mira Nair has that kind of a wacky wicked sense of humour. I feel she'd understand what Munnabhai represents. And Chris Tucker would make Munnabhai a completely different character from what Sanju made him. Less goofy more wise-cracking, I'd say.

So yes, I'm pretty much happy with the thought of Mira doing a take on my film. I believe she starts in January. Still a long way to go. Right now I'm completely taken up with the release of Lage Raho...Munnabhai.

I saw the final print yesterday for the first time. Now I can rest easy. Maybe Mira would like to do a sequel to Gangsta MD? I 've the material ready for her, ha ha."

Though she has done a wide variety of films from the path-breaking Salaam Bombay to the disastrous Vanity Fair, and though Monsoon Wedding had its ribtickling moments, Mira has never done a comedy before.