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Jaya wants women's Bill for film world

Gargi Parsai

‘It does not offer good roles for older women like me'

Jaya Bachchan

NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party MP and actress Jaya Bachchan on Friday said there should be a Women's Reservation Bill for the film industry, which was male dominated and did not offer good roles for older women like her, whose “best is yet to come.”

Ms. Bachchan — who has acted in films like Guddi, Koshish, Abhimaan, Sholay, Silsila, Hazar Chaurasi Ki Ma and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham — said she felt closest to her debut character in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Guddi, but declined to name her favourite film.

‘My buddy'

Speaking to members of the Indian Women's Press Corps, Ms. Bachchan said she would love to do a film with her daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, with whom she shared a “great relationship.”

“Aishwarya is my buddy. If I don't like anything I tell her and if she disagrees with me, she tells me. [But] I can be dramatic and she has to be respectful,” she said.

Ms. Bachchan said she wanted to buy the rights of a regional film on a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship that she would like to do with Ms. Aishwarya.

‘Media insensitive'

Ms. Bachchan criticised the media for a recent tabloid report about her daughter-in-law's motherhood and said that when the family asked the tabloid paper to issue an apology, it was done in private.

“We talk of the Women's Bill, but when it comes to reporting about women, the media is insensitive. If you have the liberty to malign, you should have the courage to refute in the same manner. This kind of reporting is now going beyond all limits of decency,” Ms. Bachchan said.

Asked whether all four “superstars” in her family would come together for a film, she said: “Four of us together would be too much.” She added that for her there was only one superstar in the film industry — Dilip Kumar.

To a question on her son Abhishek being under the shadow of his “towering father,” Ms. Bachchan said: “If he really has it in him, he will have to overcome the towering personality of his father. In order to succeed he must struggle. I'd like to see him take on Amitabh Bachchan as a challenge.”

‘Marriage not necessary'

To another question, she said in today's time it was not necessary for a woman to be married. “It is fine not to have children, because what kind of world are we leaving for them?”

She added that she may not have married had she not been in love with Amitabh Bachchan. “We had to get married because we wanted to go for a holiday and my in-laws said that we must get married before that.”

Daughter of journalist Taroon Kumar Bhaduri, Ms. Bachchan said her father was a great influence on her, besides her mother and a god-mother she did not name.

She said she liked orderliness and would have joined the Army had she not been an actress.

Ms. Bachchan was the All-India best cadet for the junior division of the National Cadet Corps.

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