I must have taken something to get Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi together on the screen after 18 long years.

Well, that’s the casting coup debutant director Rohit Roy managed to pull off for his ten-minute short film Rice Plate which is a part of Sanjay Gupta’s Dus Kahaniyaan .

“Sanjay Gupta was the assistant director for Jalwa (1987), so Naseerbhai and Gupta already had an equation. Naseerbhai was very forthcoming; he even joked about how I had already told the newspapers about him being my ideal choice. He said, ‘Acha bina puche mera naam de diya paper mein’. He was very cool and told me he’d love to do the film,” said Rohit. That was one brilliant ingredient ready to be a part of this ‘dishy’ affair!