His film Maan Gaye Mughall-E-Azam is releasing this Friday and he candidly states he has no problems doing comedy. “I began my career with comedy on stage,” he says. “I don’t find it difficult to do it.” In Maan Gaye, he plays a RAW agent, who dons disguises to find criminals. “My character is quite bad at it,” he says. “Instead of searching for criminals, he is always running after Mallika Sherawat. Any resemblance to any RAW agent living or dead is purely coincidental,” he laughs. He is all praise for Sherawat. “She is professional, hardworking and warm,” he says.

As an actor, Bose is known to take up serious films, or what he calls “my world cinema films”. Yet, he agreed to Maan Gaye.

“It is a one-off thing, like my other comedies,” he explains. “I go by instinct when I choose a film. My instinct with this one was good. Sometimes, it can go wrong too.” However, he doesn’t want to do any more comedies right now. “I may do romantic drama again, and definitely movies like The Japanese Wife, because you can repeat yourself in that kind of art-house cinema, yet not repeat yourself.”

One such movie is his next release, Santosh Sivan’s Tahaan. “Tahaan is about the loss of love and is set against the backdrop of terrorism in Kashmir, so there is a tinge of sadness,” he says. Bose plays Zafar, whom he describes as “a brainless, witless, dumb, Kashmiri boy.”

Rahul adds that “It was a challenge to play that role as he is as far away from me in real life as you can get. Also, the character has no motivation.” Initially, the role was a cameo, yet Bose agreed because Sivan requested him to do it.