The year was
1971. I had barely stepped into my teens
and was an avid reader of Filmfare/Femina/The Illustrated Weekly of India.
That was the year when Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Guddi released and Jaya
Bhaduri made her debut as Kusum, the quintessential schoolgirl with a massive crush on filmstar Dharmendra. She must have been about 22 then, but looked
absolutely convincing as the teenaged, school-going Kusum in her pleated
uniform, white blouse, white keds and hair tied up in plaits, complete with
white ribbons. Unbelievably, (or looking back, perhaps predictably) her fresh-faced appearance, devoid of the
pancake, the bouffant hairdos, the flouncy, body-hugging, revealing dresses,
dramatic eye makeup and exaggerated dialogue-delivery, took the nation by storm. In retrospect, it seems
we were ready – for the change. Sure, the script demanded it. But then, even
the script was path-breaking. The school prayer
which is going on when she comes on screen (Humko man ki shakti dena) became
an anthem of sorts. Still is – the title of this post is borrowed from the second
line of the prayer song.
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Forever Kusum: The eternal schoolgirl, Jaya in Guddi
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Autograph please: With Dharmendra playing himself
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| The Camera Loved Her: In her (almost) first shot in 'Guddi' |
Full of
vigour and idealism, she followed it up with Upahaar (1971) Koshish, Parichay,
Bawarchi, Ek Nazar, Piya ka Ghar, Annadata, Bansi Birju, Anamika (1972), Zanjeer and Abhimaan (1973)
Kora Kagaz, Naya Din Nayi Raat (1974) Mili, Sholay and Chupke Chupke
(1975), a spate of films that had her portraying believable characters with a
degree of convincing realism that was unusual for the times. In many of these,
she was pitted against older, more experienced actors, far more successful than
herself. Most times, not only did she hold her own, but also managed to attract
attention to herself. Within a few years, she carved a niche for herself which has
remained uniquely hers to this day.
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| With Anil Dhawan in Piya ka Ghar: A film on the urban housing problem |
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With Sanjeev Kumar in Koshish: Playing a speech and hearing- impaired couple
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| With Kamini Kaushal in Upahaar: Based on Tagore's Samapti |
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| Baahon mein chale aao from Anamika: The one-of-a-kind bedroom song |
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| Bawarchi: Holding her own in a stellar cast of veterans |
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| The Young Widow in Sholay: The silent love story between Jai and Radha |
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| With Jeetendra in Parichay: The Hindi adaptation of The Sound of Music |
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| With Randhir Kapoor: A rare glamorous avataar in Jawani Diwani |
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| With Vijay Anand in Kora Kagaz: A remake of Saat Paake Bandha |
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| Mili: The girl suffering from a fatal disease who becomes an an inspiration |
However, few
people know that the cinematic journey which began with Guddi on the
Hindi screen actually began with Mahanagar made in her native Bengali by
Satyajit Ray. She was actually 15 then (the age she portrayed in Guddi)
and played the role of Bani, the lead character Subroto’s (played by veteran
Bengali star actor, Anil Chatterjee) sister.
The film also had Madhabi Mukherjee (a big name in Bengali films and Ray’s
Charulata) in the cast. She landed the role courtesy family friends who
suggested her name to Ray.
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| In Satyajit Ray's Mahanagar: At age 15 |
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Mahanagar: With co-stars Anil Chatterjee and Madhabi Mukherjee
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She enjoyed the experience a lot and became an avid
watcher of international films at the local film society, often discussing story,
characterisations and actors portrayals with family members.
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| Jaya's Parents: Tarun Kumar and Indira Bhaduri |
Once when her
father (the renowned journalist Tarun Kumar Bhaduri) remarked that a certain
actor could have turned in a better portrayal had he been better trained, she
was intrigued to learn that there were actually schools/institutes where one
could train and learn acting as a craft. Her mind was made up. She was going to
join FTII – and in that moment the child actor of Mahanagar, was destined to become the Jaya Bhaduri the world knows today. She passed out with a first class first being a gold medallist in her batch
(Asrani, Paintal, Anil Dhawan, Danny Denzongpa, Navin Nishchal were classmates)
and path blazer (and was later the external examiner in practicals for Shabana
Azmi and Zarina Wahaab, her juniors). The
former in fact admits to taking up acting as a career after watching Suman,
a documentary with Jaya playing Suman as part of her training at the FTII).
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| With friends from the FTII: (From the left) Shabana, Romesh Sharma and Danny
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Her acting
guru Roshan Taneja in his memoirs (Moments of Truth: My Life with Acting)
recalls how in 1968, she got selected into the acting course at the institute.
Her application, under 'Previous Theatre/Cinema Experience,' listed her stint with Ray in Mahanagar, so the entire selection
panel was curious to see the candidate. When she was called in, they discussed
her experience of what it was to work with the great master. Then they asked
her to perform the acting piece assigned to her. But perhaps “wishing to make a
better impression” she decided to perform something she had prepared on her
own. “She entered with the dead body of a child
in her spread-out arms, and with it she, ever so slowly, moved around the room,
making us witness a loving mother’s deeply moving, sorrowful lamentation. She
made up for many a dry patch we had endured during the period of audition with
her performance.” (Shades of Hazaar Chaurasi ki Ma?)
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| With acting guru Roshan Taneja (in glasses) and fellow-student Shatrughan Sinha |
He also
recalls how she got an offer from the acclaimed Bengali director Mrinal Sen
to play the lead in Bhuvan Shome (opposite thespian Utpal Dutt, in his
younger days) while still studying at the FTII. Sen even offered to shoot it
during the summer holidays so her schedule/classes would not be upset. But much
to her disappointment, the rules of the Institute barred students from taking
up any professional assignments, even during vacations, until they had completed
the course. She rued the rules and criticised the principal’s strict stand on
the issue, but all to no avail. The Principal (Mr Jagat Murari, in those days)
told her she was free to leave the Institute at any time she wanted, if the
film was so important to her – that perhaps made her take a more balanced view
of the whole thing. But just goes to show how her fame had travelled, even
while she was still training as an actor.
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| The Missed Opportunity?: Suhasini Mulay with Utpal Dutt in Bhuvan Shome |
No article
on Jaya Bhaduri can ever be complete without mention of her lesser-half, megastar Amitabh Bachchan. It was at FTII that she first met him – he had come
to the Institute as part of KA Abbas’ cast in Saat Hindustani to shoot there. “All of us were very impressed on learning from Abbas that the
kurta-clad young man was the son of the great poet, Harivansh Rai Bachchan” she
narrates. “But he used to look so lean and thin those days, the talk soon
veered around to ‘Inko khaana-vaana dete hain ya nahin? Dubla patla sa hai,
actor banne aaya hai…kaise banega?’ Everyone
wondered if he was star material in an industry ruled by actors like
Dharmendra.” But to my eyes, he looked very distinguished even at 20 years old,
and somehow left no doubt in my mind that he had it in him,” she says. Their
friendship grew. He would visit her off
and on at the FTII.
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| Once Upon a Time: Jaya and Amitabh from her Days at FTII |
Eventually, Jaya passed out with flying colours and
made it big in Hindi movies. Occasionally, he would bump into her on his rounds
of studios as a struggling actor, where he would come scouting for work.
There
came the day Prakash Mehra signed him as the lead for Zanjeer on the
recommendation of script writers Salim-Javed, for a script that had been
rejected by the likes of Dev Anand, Dharmendra, Raj Kumar…the list was endless.
When Jaya was offered the lead role opposite him, she signed without hesitation,
sharing the script-writers’ conviction that this was a role that was going to
make him. Before that, she had co-starred with him in
Ek Nazar and Bansi Birju, both of which had flopped at the
box-office. After Zanjeer was shot, Mehra found it difficult to find
distributors. Eventually, it was released as a B-grade action film. And in the words of a popular film columnist,
“At twelve noon on the day of the release Amitabh Bachchan was a nobody, at
three pm he was a star and at six pm Amitabh Bachchan had replaced Rajesh
Khanna as the next superstar and there was no stopping him……”
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| With Amitabh in Zanjeer: The Film that Made Amitabh Bachchan |
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| With Amitabh in Abhimaan: When reel-life overlapped real-life? |
Jaya and
Amitabh married soon after in 1973,
(parts of Abhimaan, were shot after their marriage). Two children were
born to them, Shweta and Abhishek; Shweta is the daughter-in-law of Ritu Nanda (sister of Rishi and Randhir Kapoor) and a published author (Paradise Towers) while Abhishek is a leading film actor in
his own right, married to Miss World 1994, Aishwarya Rai, also a movie star. Together,
the family is regarded as film royalty and accorded great respect wherever they
go.
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| At their Wedding in 1973: A Marriage that Endures |
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| The First Family of Bollywood |
Jaya gave
up working in the movies for a time while the children were growing up, but has
continued to work off and on ever since (Fiza, Silsila, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi
Gham, Kal Ho Na Ho, Hazaar Chaurasi ki Ma, a Marathi film Akka and one
in Bhojpuri, Gangadevi besides Desh, Meherjaan, Sunglass in
Bengali, to name a few). She also made a career for herself in politics first
elected in 2004 as a Samajwadi Party MP to the Rajya Sabha. She was re-elected
in 2012, 2018 and continues to represent SP in the RS in great style and elan
in 2021.
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| In Fiza: Playing Mother to Hritik Roshan and Karishma Kapoor |
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| In 'Silsila': The Greatest Casting Coup in Hindi Film History |
In her
long and notable career, Jaya has been awarded 9 Filmfare awards for Best
Actress/Best Supporting Actress, Filmfare's Lifetime Achievement Award and a Padma Shri in
1992.
In the
nineties, she set up her own production house Saraswati Audio Visuals Pvt
Ltd which produced 65 episodes of an entertaining sitcom Dekh Bhai Dekh that was created, written, directed by Anand
Mahendroo. It told the story of three generations of the Diwan family
that live together and are part of each other's trials and tribulations.
It starred a galaxy of India's cinematic and television talent, such as Divya
Seth, Navin Nischal (a gold medallist like Jaya herself, from the FTII), Farida
Jalal, Shekhar Suman, Bhavna Balsaver, Deven Bhojani, Vishal and Nattasha
Singh.
Leftrightthodasacenter.blogspot.com
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