Ashiesh Roy in Maniben.com

Ashiesh Roy is a happy man these days. The actor has been given the chance to pay a tribute to the legendary actor Mehmood in Maniben.com. “It is not everyday that an actor gets to play a character immortalised by the king of comedy Mehmood saab!”, enthused Ashiesh. Contiloe Films, which is producing the popular sitcom Maniben.com starring Smriti Irani, were searching for an actor to play a south Indian music teacher along the lines of Mehmood saab’s character in the film Padosan. “Rajan sir (Wagdhare), the director suggested my name to them,” informs Ashiesh. “I had played a south Indian film director in one of his sitcoms years ago with Bhagyashree, and I guess, he must have thought I could do justice to the role in Maniben. We had a blast shooting the episodes”. Being a Bengali, wouldn’t he have preferred doing Kishore Kumar’s character from Padosan? “If I had played it, everyone would have said that being a Bengali it would have been easy for me to do it. Which would have been wrong anyway since Kishore da was brilliant in that character. Playing a Tamilian and paying homage to Mehmood saab was double the challenge,” smiled Ashiesh. The episodes featuring Ashiesh Roy will air from next Tuesday on Sony Sab.