Filmmaker Mira Nair has begun shooting in New York "The Namesake", based on the novel of the same name by Pulitzer Prize winning author Jhumpa Lahiri.

Fox Searchlight Pictures, which will distribute the film, said that principal photography began on the film starring Kal Penn ("Harold & Kumar Go To The White Castle") for the novel's screen adaptation written by Sooni Taraporevala. Nair worked with Taraporevala on "Mississippi Masala" and "Salaam Bombay".

The film is produced by Lydia Dean Pilcher with whom Nair partnered on the Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning "Hysterical Blindness" as well as last year's "Vanity Fair". Ronnie Screwvala of UTV is one of the executive producers.

The novel tells the story of the Ganguli family "whose move from Calcutta (now Kolkata) to New York evokes a lifelong balancing act to meld to a new world without forgetting the old". The film features Irfan Khan and Tabu apart from Kal Penn.

"'The Namesake' encompasses in a deep humane way the tale of millions of us who have left one home for another, who have known what it means to combine the old ways with the new world, who have left the shadow of our parents to find ourselves for the first time," Nair was quoted as saying.

The film's cast includes Soham Nick Chatterjee, Jacinda Barrett, Zuleikha Robinson, Glenne Headley and Brooke Smith.

For five-year-old Soham, the audition call from the production office turned out to be his first break. One hour after he left with the production office, where his mother Sahswati had left a videotape of him reciting from a scene, Soham was called back.

"I really like what you do with your eyes and your eyebrows," Nair said after watching tape. Soham will play the role of the protagonist Gogol as a child.