Rediff.com is reporting that Abhishek Bachchan has officially bowed out of Mira Nair’s upcoming film effort translating Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake onto celluloid. Bachchan, who was slated to play the lead in the film, may now be replaced by Kal Penn, whom the BBC has reported “will play an important character.” The film is also slated to include Nair’s New York gang–Gabriel Byrne, Natalie Portman, Chloe Sevigny, and Steve Buscemi, among others, according to the BBC story.

This film, if done well, has the potential to place Nair in the top tier of directors, and also will hopefully go quite far in presenting certain aspects of desi-American culture to mainstream America.

The story also notes that Nair has turned down the offer to direct the next Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.