Neena Gupta to play lead in adaptation of chef Vikas Khanna's book, The Last Color

Neena Gupta has put her sabbatical to an end after signing on to chef Vikas Khanna's film, The Last Color. In an inimitable style, the actress announced her joining the project through a post on her Instagram account.

The film, an adaptation of Khanna's book of the same name, builds around the friendship between a widow, Noor, and a young tight-rope walker in Vrindavan. Gupta is expected to play the widow.

While the novel is expected to be launched on 18 May, the film will be released in the coming months. The film will also mark chef Khanna's directorial debut.

Describing her experience of the project, Gupta wrote, "A story about how the color of the Widows of Banaras, would change forever.
One of the most fulfilling experiences as an actor, a movie where I didn’t have to slip into the role, the minute I put on my whites.... I became Noor."

The actress also shared a picture of the director, Khanna, on location in Banares' Manikarnika Ghat. 

A press release from Bloomsbury Publications, the publisher of the book, read, "Pitting the smoke rising from the funeral pyres of Manikarnika Ghat, against the joyous colour-bursts of Holi celebrations, Vikas Khanna’s marvelously layered story of the survival of a delicate friendship, is brilliantly told and poignantly life-affirming."