/> What's with Randeep and all these temperamental Bengali women? Forget about Sushmita Sen. Nandana Sen with whom Randeep is shooting his new bi-lingual film Rang Rasiya/Colours Of Passion, is also known to be quite moody.

And there are distinctly cold vibes between Randeep Hooda and Bipasha Basu at Karjat where they shot two separate films simultaneously. Word has it that Randeep went over to Bipasha's set as a goodwill gesture. But Bipasha and John refused to acknowledge him.

"It really doesn't matter," shrugs Randeep. "I'm in Karjat to shoot for one of my toughest roles. I don't know what offended Bipasha. I wasn't speeding uncontrollably. The car was completely in my control

I didn't even know Bipasha was standing there. If she has taken offence I can't do anything about it. Right now I've much bigger issues to take care of."

Like playing the pioneer of calendar-art Raja Ravi Varma in Ketan Mehta's film.

Sighs Randeep, "I've played real-life characters before. I played Dawood in D and Daya Nayak in Risk. But Rang Rasiya is much tougher than I thought. There're no reference points to the character. He has to age from 18 to 50 and we aren't shooting chonologically...we never do. So I've to keep going back and forth."

Randeep who turned 31 on 20 August, put on a lot of weight to play Ravi Raja Varma. "And since I'm shown painting for a large part of the playing time I also had to get the paintbrush and the strokes right...

Now I know what to with the empty canvas...There're so many aspects to Ravi Raja Varma's personality. He not only patented calendar-art and the mythological faces of all our deities, he also made the sari into the a national costume.

And since Dadasaheb Phalke was his student, Ravi Raja Varma also pioneered Indian cinema...To go into all these areas of a bio-pic aren't easy. I'm trying. But it's very tough."

Randeep is so consumed by his latest role he seems to be re-living the 19 th-century artiste's life.

"After grappling with guns in my earlier films I wanted to completely move away from the violent image. Playing Ravi Raja Varma has proved to be a much harder task than playing Dawood or Daya Nayak. The character haunts me in my dreams."

As for his birthday, "Last year for my birthday I was shooting in the Nasik prison for Risk. At least this time I was free."