Knowing Jaya Bachchan

By Subhash K. Jha -

April 9, 2015 - 10:19 AM IST

In one of her finest performances, Jaya Bachchan played mother to a very, very endearing son who just becomes a number: 1084.

Co-incidentally, I saw Jaya Bachchan playing mom to Joy Sengupta in Govind Nihalani's unforgettable Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa just a day before Abhishek won an award for his fine performance in Yuva.

Knowing Jaya Bachchan

Minutes after his name was announced, I had received a message from the proud mother informing me of the same. I could see the tears of pride and joy glistening through the words.

Jaya's role as mother matters more to her than any other. That's precisely why she gave up superstardom in 1973, when she ruled the box-office, to become wife to Amitabh Bachchan and subsequently mother to Shweta and Abhishek.

"Everyone saw it as a big sacrifice and painted me as Mother India. But the fact is, I did what I wanted to. There was no martyrdom involved because I'm not that kind of a person. No one can make me do what I don't want to."

That this woman of substance won't do something only because it's expected of her, goes without saying. Jaya is a woman of steel in the truest sense of the word. In spite of being the first lady of filmdom with the accompanying baggage of obligations and responsibilities, she's as real and rooted to the ground as anyone can get.

You won't find her saying or doing anything she doesn't believe in. Nor will you come across anyone who can accuse her of being unfair. Frank, sometimes brutally so, she calls a spade a spade. How often has she pulled me up for my personality-oriented page-3 writing?! "You aren't meant to do these things. We need serious writers who can put our cinema into a perspective. We've enough peeping-tom journalists writing about which star sneezed at which party."

In fact Jaya, in all her candid objectivity, believes I write too much about her husband.

I agree. When I see her give a performance like the one in Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa or the earlier ones in Doosri Sita, Uphaar, Annadata, Koshish, Kora Kagaz and Mili, I feel film history has been extremely unfair to Jaya Bachchan. You really can't blame me entirely for the scarcity of writings on this formidable actress. She doesn't allow me to write about her, unless I throw a major tantrum and threaten to go on a hunger strike in front of her beautifully kept residence Jalsa in Juhu, Mumbai.

Let's not forget, this pioneering performer heralded naturalistic acting into mainstream Hindi cinema. Before her there was Nutan, and after her there are Smita Patil and Shabana Azmi. But Jaya occupies a unique position. When she came into the movies with her two back-to-back performances in Guddi and Uphaar in 1971, Jaya's complete denial of 'filmy' glamour became a trend-setting phenomenon.

While we tend to think of Jaya Bhaduri as the actress in a crumpled cotton sari and loose hair playing authentic middleclass characters in middle-of-the-road movies by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Asit Sen, Gulzar and Anil Ganguly, she, in fact, created a fashion statement. In 1972-73, her hairstyle and specially-designed blouses with puffed sleeves, became a rage among women in the country. Jaya was a fashion icon.

"Oh! I thought other actresses were fashion icons. I was just...Jaya", she laughs uproariously. "I just wore and did what seemed right for me. To me, the thought of doing anything that doesn't come naturally to me seems unacceptable. That applies to both my personal and professional dealings."
The daughter of a crusader and pioneering journalist Taroon Kumar Bhaduri, I'm proud to say she's my closest friend among the Bachchans and perhaps the most shortchanged in terms of career and recognition. Everyone seems to think Amitabh Bachchan is the mega-star of the family. To me, Jaya is the tallest Bachchan. You have to see the well-oiled running of her impeccable household, and how cool she remains in spite of work-related and personal guests swarming her residence, to realize how tall her presence looms over her distinguished family.

Everyone sees Abhishek as his father's son, when, in fact, he has more of his mother than his father in him. The smile and those eyes... They've been bequeathed to the Bachchan heir from his illustrious mother, who, at one point in the history of cinema was so huge; she could shoulder the then-struggling Amitabh Bachchan's endeavor to become a star.

So far, she has been seen with her son only once in a Bengali film called Des, where she played a social crusader who's about to be whisked out of the country by her NRI son. Abhishek played the son.

I don't think Jaya is comfortable with the idea of playing her own son's mother on screen. It's hard for her to play a role that she has perfected in real life. It's even harder for her to trifle with truth. So many struggling directors have been told bluntly that they need to improve their act. Her husband would never take upon himself to assess people. He would simply turn away with a smile. Jaya can't do that. She confronts people situations and crises headlong, gets to the bottom of the problem and then moves on.

Zanjeer wouldn't have happened to her husband if Jaya hadn't agreed to play the relatively short role opposite Amitabh Bachchan. Many leading heroines including Mumtaz had said no. Jaya sportingly stepped in at the eleventh hour, adding great star value to the film... the rest is too well known to be repeated.

What needs reiteration is the intense success-streak that she enjoyed from 1971 to 1973, right up to Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Abhimaan, Mili and Chupke Chupke, all three with her husband, before she called it quits. Virtually, every film that she consented to do, made money at the box-office. For a while, it seemed there was no other leading lady except Hema Malini to challenge Jaya's rein at the top.

"I never thought of all that. I just did the quality and quantity of work that suited me. Then I moved on to look after my home and family. Today, when the two boys in my life don't need my presence that compulsively, I've taken on the responsibility of being a Rajya Sabha member. That's so no self-indulgence for me. I take my job as parliamentarian very seriously."
And films? "Where are the roles? Show me challenging roles for an actress my age, and I am game, as I was for Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa or even Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and Kal Ho Na Ho, where I didn't have much to do in terms of footage. But at least, there was space for me to breathe in the script."

Then, she looks dreamily out of the window, probably thinking of the dinner guests that night. Or maybe just wondering if playing mom to Bollywood's new candidate for No.1 is easier than playing Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa.