The critical and commercial buzz around Rituparno Ghosh's first Hindi film "Raincoat" is strong enough to prompt the director and leading lady Aishwarya Rai to work together again.

Ghosh and Aishwarya are all set to team up for the third time after the Bengali "Chokher Bali" and the Hindi "Raincoat". The new Hindi film is expected to cast Aishwarya as Shabana Azmi's daughter.

"It's my third film in the mother-daughter trilogy after 'Unnishe April' and 'Titli'," Ghosh told IANS. While Aparna Sen and Debashree Roy had played mother and daughter in the first, real-life mother-daughter Aparna and Konkona Sen Sharma starred in the latter.

This project would precede Ghosh's other plan to make a Hindi film with Amitabh Bachchan in the lead. "Since that requires to be shot in winter, I'll go ahead with my other film instead," says Ghosh.

The decision to make another mother-daughter film with the fascinating Aishwarya-Shabana combo is prompted by the positive reactions to "Raincoat".

While its Kolkata-based producers Venkatesh Films expected a certain staunch clientele for art house films to flock for "Raincoat", no one expected widespread audience participation for the film.

"Raincoat", budgeted at Rs.25 million, is expected to make back its money within the next two weeks.

"I'm quite pleasantly surprised by the response," confesses Ghosh. "This was my first film in Hindi, a language I'm not completely familiar or comfortable with. But it's been smooth sailing all the way."

For Aishwarya, "Raincoat" is a special yearend triumph. "It's like a Christmas gift," she laughs.

"The messages and calls haven't stopped. Very frankly I was quite apprehensive about how my performance would be received. Niroo, my character in 'Raincoat', is someone I knew nothing about. She's a woman from Bihar settled in Kolkata. Her thought processes, body language, clothes and attitude...all required a hell of a lot of re-orientation on my part. I guess I managed to pull it off."

The favourable response comes as a year-end assurance after a fleet of flak-filled performances in "Khakee", "Kyun...Ho Gaya Na" and "Bride & Prejudice".

For Ghosh too, the going has been tough, with the Bollywood bigwigs adamant on slotting him as a regional art house filmmaker.

"'Raincoat' has been able to live down both the 'regional' and 'art house' labels," he beams in relief.

Ghosh's long-delayed entry into Bollywood has been greeted enthusiastically. At least four major production houses are vying to produce his next film. Bollywood hasn't really had a successful Bengali filmmaker since the golden period of Bimal Roy, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Asit Sen, Shakti Samanta, Basu Chatterjee and Basu Bhattacharya.

Smiles Ghosh: "They could bring audiences together without being labelled commercial or arty. I'd like to do that."