Madhuri Dixit’s Gulab Gang is growing. First she was recruited as the leader of the gang of pink-saree-clad crusaders. Now we hear Tannishta Chatterjee, the award-winning actress from the British film <em>Brick Lane</em> who lately shared screen space with Jude Law and Keira Knightley in <em>Anna Karenina</em>, has joined the gang…literally. Tannishta plays Madhuri’s chief lieutenant.

Two of Hindi cinema’s primary screen queens Madhuri Dixit and Juhi Chawla faced the camera together for the first time on Tuesday when they shot for Soumik Sen’s <em>Gulab Gang</em> in Madh Island. Interestingly the two heroines who were touted as the closest rivals in the 1990s (with Sridevi leading ahead of both of them) hit it off immediately, partly because the unit had hit upon a golden method of unifying the two screen queens. They had devised a no-smoking club for the shooting where each time someone from the crew was caught smoking he or she had to pay a fine of Rs.500.

Juhi Chawla has joined Madhuri Dixit for Anubhav Sinha’s upcoming film Gulab Gang. The producer feels that it will be great to see the two actresses together for the first time on the big screen. "Actually, there were two reasons to cast Juhi Chawla. The first thing was that it was a creative decision taken by all of us and we thought it would be great to see these two iconic stars teamed together in the film," said Sinha. "I couldn't have pulled off a better cast than the two most iconic female stars, Madhuri and Juhi, together for the first time on Indian screen," he maintained.