Here's how they found her...

Finding 'Amma' proved to be the the toughest casting call for Peepli [Live]. While both director Anusha Rizvi and producer Aamir Khan wanted 72-year-old Farrukh Jaffer (she played Rekha's mom in Umrao Jaan) to play the part, tracking her down was the biggest challenge.

A source describes the troubles they went through to hunt Jaffer down. "Amma is a special character in the film and it was important we got the right person to play the part. Both Aamir and Anusha were certain that it had to be Farrukh Jaffer. But no one knew what had happened to her. Finding her was a mammoth task."

At one point, the casting team was told that Jaffer had passed away a few years back. "Everyone was grief-stricken. The search began anew to find someone else to fill her shoes. The team even tried casting an abusive beggar woman who frequents Andheri station to play the role. However, she couldn't get the accent right."

Running out of alternatives, Aamir suggested they cast the woman who played Shah Rukh's dai in Swades. "He personally called up director Ashutosh Gowariker and to his surprise, found out that the woman who played that role was none other than Farrukh Jaffer -- his original choice for the role."

Confirming this, Anusha says, "our first choice was Rekha's mom in Umrao Jaan and after one and half year of search we rediscovered her; thinking we were going to meet someone else. We couldn't have asked for a better amma."