Conversations with Mani Ratnam: Arvind Swamy as Shekhar Narayanan Pillai Manisha Koirala as Shaila Banu Nassar as Narayanan Pillai, Shekhar's father Kitty as Basheer Tinnu Anand as the Sakthi Samaj Head Akash Khurana as a fanatical Muslim leader Master Harsha (Sumeet) as Kabir Narayan Master Hridhay as Kamal Basheer A. R. Srinivasan as Police officer Crazy Venkatesh as Servant Prakash Raj as Kumar Rallapalli as a transgender woman M. V. Vasudeva Rao Pramoth as Periya Thambi Vijaya Chandrika as Visalam Radhabhai as Pankajam Sujitha in a special appearance Additionally, Sonali Bendre and Nagendra Prasad appear in the item number "Humma Humma". Production During the recording of the background score of Mani Ratnam's Thiruda Thiruda (1993), the Bombay riots broke out. Mani Ratnam planned on making a film in Malayalam about a boy who gets lost in the riots, and requested M. T. Vasudevan Nair to write the script. This was supposed to be Mani Ratnam's second Malayalam film after Unaroo (1985). But since the idea did not materialise, he decided to make it in Tamil as the film that would later be titled Bombay. According to Ratnam, Bombay was not originally planned as a political film: "It was a phase India was going through and these things affected me and found their way into my work." Aishwarya Rai was considered for the female lead, but she opted out due to unavailability of dates, with the production of the film clashing with her Miss World pageant, a title she went on to win. Mani Ratnam held a photo shoot for the film with Vikram and Manisha Koirala, but eventually did not choose Vikram as he was unwilling to shave his beard and long hair that he had grown for the production of another film during the period, Pudhiya Mannargal (1994); the role went to Arvind Swamy. Koirala has stated that, though some people advised her against accepting the project since she had to play a mother, she did not listen as there were others "it'll be foolish to refuse a Mani Ratnam film". Koirala's voice was dubbed by Rohini. Nassar, a Muslim in real life, was cast as the father of Swamy's character (a Hindu) while Kitty, a Hindu in real life, was cast as the father of Koirala's character (a Muslim). Ratnam deliberately cast them in those roles as a statement. When Ratnam approached cinematographer Rajiv Menon to shoot Bombay,