Aishwarya Rai to step into the legendary Nargis’ role

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is all set to play a role immortalized by the legendary Nargis in the film Raat aur Din.

Directed by Satyen Bose, the 1969 black-and-white classic with astonishing songs sung by Lata Mangeshkar featured Nargis as a woman with a split personality. For portraying two different personalities in one character, Nargis had won the National award for Best Actress.

Aishwarya definitely has big shoes to fill and according to the producer, this would definitely be the biggest challenge of her career.

Producer Prerna Aroraa said, “It is too early to talk about this project. But yes, I’d like to say it would be a tremendous challenge for Aishwarya to play a role for which Nargis ji is remembered to this day; Raat Aur Din was Nargis ji’s swan song. She never returned to acting after this film. Her fans still remember her in this film. It’s her most iconic role after Mother India. And I’m proud to be associated with this film.”

While the Prernaa Arora-produced remake will be directed by Siddharth Anand, the iconic Lata Mangeshkar songs from the original Raat Aur Din, composed by Shankar-Jaikishan will also be used in the remake. The songs from the original ‘Raat Aur Din Diya Jale’, ‘Awara Ae Mere Dil’, ‘Dil Ki Girah Kholdo’, ‘Na Chedo Kal Ke Afsane’ and ‘Jeena Humko Raas Na Aaya’ are considered to be among the best songs of composer Shankar-Jaikishan’s career.

According to reports, Sanjay Dutt’s permission had been sought before going ahead with the project.