/> Rituparno Ghosh who turned 44 on Friday couldn't have hoped for a better birthday present.

His entire Lear team decided to complete the difficult dubbing of the film.

"Difficult isn't the word," says Preity Zinta who plays an actress in The Last Lear. "First of all I have been doing a series of in-sync sound films lately. So dubbing, and that too for my first film in English with long flowing lines....it was tough. And to top it all there's Mr Bachchan with his booming baritone. What an orator he is! I felt so humbled."

But Preity and the rest of the cast including Mr Bachchan who had to dub the toughest Shakespearean lines of his career, had set secretly set a deadline.

The tense director finally completed all the dubbing on his birthday and is all set to return to Kolkata.

Says Ritu, "I feel like singing Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai like Waheeda Rehman in Guide. I feel liberated! I couldn't have hoped for a better birthday present. It has been a tense time for me. I've been so much in and out of Mumbai I've forgotten my home is in Kolkata.

Ideally I'd have liked to bring in my birthday with my Baba (dad) in Kolkata. But never mind, my Lear team has given me a gift I'd never forget."

The team also sent Ritu back to Kolkata with personally-signed messages on the script. "Those messages are too personal to be published. But the love for my team, I'll never forget it."

On a less sentimental note, a story on his birthday about a producer claiming the title Draupadi has Ritu chortling generously.

"He can have the title Draupadi. And any other title he wants. I'll call my film something else, if that makes him happy. Is this really an issue to fight over when innocent people have died of an extremist attack in Hyderabad? Fight against terrorism, not for film titles, please."