Opposites Attract: Jaya Bachchan and Amitabh Bachchan

Same, same yet different is how Jaya Bachchan describes husband Amitabh and herself. She talks to filmfare about their four decades of togetherness

'When you heard someone is 70, you once thought, my God, that’s hell of a lot but when you see Amit, interact with him, you think, 70? No, no, can’t be.’ He has redefined age. How time has gone by. The first time I saw him was when he visited the Pune Film Institute with KA Abbas but I was introduced to him on the sets of Guddi. He was supposed to play the role eventually done by Samit Bhanja but Anand released and Hrishikesh Mukherjee didn’t want a known face to play the character of a man who wasn’t impressed with cinema. I was impressed by him and somewhat in awe as he was Harivanshrai Bachchan’s son. I definitely felt he was different though people laughed at me when I said that. I voiced my feelings and said he’s going to make it big. Even though I was aware he wasn’t the usual stereotype hero. I fell in love with him very soon. I used to call him Lambuji till Shweta started calling him by that name too. I realised it was time to stop. After Shweta was born, we had a maid to help during the day but at night we’d do everything ourselves. In fact, on Sundays Amit would take over. He’d even bathe her. During Abhishek’s time he couldn’t be as involved with the family as he was very busy.
He’s close to both our children. Whether he’s closer to Shweta or Abhishek, well that depends on what we’re talking about. Abhishek was the baby of the family till he himself became a father. Now I do see Amit and Abhishek sharing a lot more, man to man. He was ecstatic when we got to know Aishwarya was expecting. He could barely hold himself for the first four months but once the doctor said it was okay to make the announcement, he broke the news on Twitter. Aaradhya looked a lot like Abhishek when she was born. She has his features and body structure but now she’s more like her mother. Amit depends a lot on Shweta, especially when it comes to his writing or reading.

Secret of his success

It’s difficult for me to talk about him because he represents so many different things to different people. But I suppose only the family knows him for the real person he is. The secret of his success is his humility. I still don’t think he realises what he is, where he is or what he’s doing. He just does what he thinks is right. That’s such a normal way to do things for someone who’s a celebrity. Whatever he does is the way any normal person would. He doesn’t think from the point, ‘I Amitabh Bachchan’. Never. He’s constantly aware he’s Harivanshrai’s and Teji Bachchan’s son, Shweta’s and Abhishek’s father, Aishwarya’s father-in-law and a grandfather. He thinks of all these before he does anything. He deals with situations and addresses problems the same way you or I would. Being in the position he’s in, it could be easy to get carried away and think differently. Success never affected him. In fact, it irritates him. He goes into the ‘Who needs me? No one wants me. Meri picture nahin chalti hai’ mode. Or he’ll say, ‘There are so many younger people around.’ It’s annoying when he talks like that. And believe me, he’s not saying it for effect. He genuinely believes what he says. And that goads him to work harder, which is amazing. He’s not the sort who’ll lie back and say, ‘Theek hai, kar liya. Don’t need to do anymore.’ He doesn’t rest on his achievements. He takes whatever he does seriously, not just his film roles. It could be anything. That’s difficult to believe but that’s been his big support system. He’s still striving to achieve. People might ask why does he need to? He will listen to every filmmaker who approaches him and genuinely give it a thought. He finds it difficult to say no. Another actor might wonder, ‘If I do this role it might be bad for me. It’s not going to help me.’ But Amit will say, ‘Poor chap is depending on me.’ He tries his best not to say no. To be honest, I don’t have that kind of patience.

A family man

It’s strange but the only holidays we had when the kids were small were when we joined him on outdoors during the summer holidays. The entire family would go wherever Amit was shooting, my father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law’s family. Once Shweta and Abhishek went to boarding school, they wanted to be home for the holidays. Once you’ve been away from home for so long, you don’t want to go anywhere. Amit loves being at home, he has never been the party-going sort. But we did attend premieres which were huge affairs then. He loves having our grandchildren around — Shweta’s and Nikhil Nanda’s Navya Naveli (15) and Agastya (12) and now Abhishek’s Aaradhya who’ll be one soon. All of them are gadget freaks. Agastya teaches his grandfather how to use any new gadget. And if Amit gets stuck somewhere with his phone or computer, he calls him up and asks, “Agastya, how do I fix this?’ Both of them get onto Facetime and when the problem is solved, you can hear Amit say, ‘Okay, thanks buddy.’ Today he has more time to spend with his grandchildren than he had when Shweta and Abhishek were young. He may not constantly play with them or talk to them but his security stems from the fact that they are there. As soon he gets home he asks, ‘Memsaab kahan hai, bhaiyya kahan hai, bahurani kahan hai?’ If Shweta is here he’ll also ask, ‘Baby kahan hai, bachhe kahan hai?’ Once he knows everyone is home safe, he heads to his room to sit and do his own thing. The children complain. Shweta’ll say she’s on a holiday here so why is he sitting in his study. I’m not into gadgets, I know what I need to. If there’s a problem I call Abhishek or if he’s not around then Agastya. I prefer to read the newspaper in the morning rather than check the news on the Internet. I stick to The Times of India in Mumbai and The Hindu when I’m in Delhi. Amit of course goes through all the newspapers because he needs to lambast at night on his blog. I read his blogs regularly and get to know quite a lot from them. Everything that gets written about any of us is marked and archived. It’s a shame that we don’t give archives enough importance in our country. We’re in the process of buying as many of Amit’s films as we can to restore them as far as possible and preserve them. It’s not easy but we’re trying. I don’t think my husband has any plans to pen his memoirs. There are enough people doing that for him. I can’t write to save my life. He stays up late to write his blog. That’s the time he can get his thinking machinery going when everything is quiet and there’s no one around to distract or disturb him. Because he writes late into the night people have the impression that he suffers from insomnia but far from it. He can sleep anytime, anywhere. Ask the people he works with. He can fall asleep on the set, right on his seat between shots.