Maha Manga’s brooding presence in the movie has garnered Arun a lot of praise, but she passes the kudos on to the director. “Ashutosh is a visionary. To create a fiction out of facts takes a lot of courage. As artists, we hardly did any homework. We were guided by Ashu’s vision and his intensive research,” she says. The director apparently had made detailed character sketches with ample historical references ready on his laptop for the cast.”When I asked Ashu about Maha Manga, he gave me a ready reckoner on her personality with even copies of miniature paintings showing her as the lone female courtier in Akbar’s durbar,” she says.

With the epic romance behind her, Arun will now be seen in a different avatar in her cameo in Shyam Benegal’s comedy Mahadev, starring Shreyas Talpade and Amrita Rao. “After Jodhaa Akbar, it’s difficult to say yes to any movie, but Benegal saab gave me my first break at Mandi House. I can never say no to him, particularly when the script is so different,” she says.