At last Ekta Kapoor's favourite protégée Prachi Desai is doing a film for Ekta's Balajee Films.

The petite beauty who played Farhan Akhtar rocksteady wife in Rock On is all set to play underworld don Dawood Ibrahim's soul mate Mehjabeen in Milan Luthria's Once Upon A Time In The West.

Ekta and Prachi have been catching up on all the video footage that's available on on the lady, and they've been hunting for clothes all over. In fact Prachi went all over the Muslim localities of Mumbai last month including Haji Ali to pick up authentic salwar-kameez.

Says Prachi, "That's true. I didn't want to get into yet another wife's role after Rock On and Life Partner.

Come on, yaar! I'm so young. I want to have fun and I keep getting these serious roles. But playing the don's life partner in Once Upon A Time ... was a challenge that I couldn't resist."

The role requires Prachi to look like a Muslim working-class girl in 1975 who gets involved with a don. Prachi put the offer on hold for a month, did her research and then got back to the director.

"This character is from a time that existed before me. Yes I've done plenty of reading on my character. I want to look and feel like Mehjabeen.

And it's such a challenge. And doing a film with Balajee is like coming home. Shobha Aunty, Jeetu Uncle and Ekta are like family. I remained connected with them when I did Rock On because it was produced by Ekta's cousin Gattu (Abhishek Kapoor).

My second film Life Partner has Ekta's brother Tusshar Kapoor as my co-star. And now I'm finally doing a Balajee production."

Interestingly Ekta never offered Mehjabeen's role to Prachi.

Says a source close to Ekta, "Ekta would never offer roles to people close to her, whether it's Tusshar or Prachi. She lets the director take a call."