I’m a strict mother: Jaya

Motherhood means everything to me, says Jaya Bachchan in a chat with Subhash K. Jha

Jaya Bachchan: ‘What survives is goodness’

For Jaya Bachchan, the love and respect her children give her are more important than any success in the world. According to Jaya, who gave up tinsel town after hits like Koshish and Guddi and returned to the screen only after her children had grown up, ‘she is a strict mother’. Excerpts from an interview:

Most people see you as ‘Mother No.1’ in the film industry.

Motherhood means everything to me. My children are more important to me than even my husband.

Definitely motherhood. I come from a home where my mother was always around. Just her presence gave me lot of strength. I became the person that I am because of her. Mothers don’t have to teach you anything. Instinctively, a child imbibes values and mannerisms from the mother. From the way you eat to the way you treat people, a mother’s influence is always there, regardless of whether she exercises the influence or not.

I’m an extremely strict mother. And it isn’t because my children were susceptible to being spoilt. We never allowed that. We were in a joint family. My children and my bother-in-law’s children grew up together. They played and ate together and went to the same school. They led a normal life. They knew their parents were celebrities — we didn’t hide it from them. But they didn’t know what being a celebrity entailed. They were aware that there was public interest in them when they went out. But we made sure they grew up with the celebrity status being a normal state of being. We never had to explain their identity to them. Amitji and I have been honoured but that never dazzled us. As a couple, we’ve ensured that our children don’t compromise or denigrate it.

I may be wrong but I strongly feel a guardian must be at home constantly. It could be a parent or an aunt or uncle. The presence at home needn’t be gender-driven.

I agree that is the norm. But when I decided to pause my career to look after my children, I never saw it as a sacrifice. The love, affection and respect the children give me are more important to me than any other kind of success in the world. I don’t care what the world thinks as long as my children have faith in me. Doesn’t that apply to all parents? I don’t think I’m an extraordinary mother. I come from a middleclass family. I’ve just behaved normally with my children.

I don’t think that is true. You’re giving the film industry an unnecessarily abnormal tinge. Families in our film industry are very normal. I’m not saying the industry is perfect. It just seems more imperfect than other areas because of constant media attention. I’m fortunate to have come from a decent family. That’s why I could give values to my children.

He was out making a living for his large family. But I never felt my father wasn’t around. I never felt the need for anything I didn’t have. I was happy with my life. I was very proud of my parents. I hope my children remain that way.

I try to be. I’m very duty-conscious. And I’ve become even more so now after marriage because Amitji is very conscious of his duties towards his parents. I have learnt to be more duty-conscious through my association with the Bachchan family. I have been married for 34 years. It’s a lifetime. I’ve lived longer with this family than I have with mine. From my own parents I’ve imbibed goodness and simplicity. God has been kind to me. I hope I’ve given back to my children the values I’ve imbibed from both my families.

But I know they’ve a long way to go. When they were growing up, I always told my children it didn’t matter how they did in their exams. It’s what they made of themselves as human beings that mattered. I remember when I was a child there were always a lot of red marks on the report card in some subjects, but the conduct column was always very good.

That made my father very happy. He always said a good strong person has a better chance of survival in this world. I hope I’ve been able to give these values to my children. Name, fame, glamour...it all vanishes. What survives is goodness.

Sometime good friends can be family too. When people originally said ‘family first’, we lived in a smaller society. Now the family has to be a lot larger. You have to be more generous.

I miss their physical presence. Having them in the house is so reassuring. But I’m happy being on my own as well. I’m not a disgruntled person. My children used to be in boarding schools, but they were never really away from me. Thank god for cell phones. That instrument irritates me, but it helps to connect me to the ones I love the most.

Very stereotypical till recently and that was sad. Mothers have changed. And why just mothers in our films. Look at our mythology and real-life families where the matriarch had so many avatars and facets. But the portrayal is changing. In fact, there’s hardly a mother in today’s films except in Karan Johar’s cinema. — IANS

HOME