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Entertainment
In a new avatar
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From a Brahmin priestess to a wily politician, Jaya Prada is playing the strong woman in her movies this time round. ZIYA US SALAM the ``ideal Indian wife" enjoying her second stint.
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"Bharat Bhagya Vidhata", Jaya Prada's comeback film, found her portraying a bold character.
WHEN THE spotlight has shifted, when the cameramen have moved, when the frenzied adulation of fans has died down, it is time for men to turn boys! And women to be girls!
It is time to realise little fantasies, pander to little whims. It is time to do what you always wanted to do, yet were never game to do. Amitabh Bachchan did it in his second innings in Bollywood. For long the Angry Young Man of the Hindi film industry who seldom stepped beyond the Manmohan Desai-Prakash Mehra school of filmmaking, he dared to play a negative character in Rakesh Mehra's "Aks" last year, dared to leave the centrestage to Akshay Kumar in "Ek Rishta" and play the spoilsport in Shah Rukh Khan's love lores, "Mohabbatein" and "Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham." Last heard, he was trying his hand at a character from the Mahabharata.
Now Jaya Prada — not quite as high profile but with a distinct following of her own — is following suit.
The lady, seen in almost all her films, draped in endless yards of sari, wearing dozens of bangles, henna on her hands, sindoor on her forehead and almost every jewel the best jeweller in town could present an eager shopper, is going through a metamorphosis in her second innings in Bollywood.
No longer the doormat she played to perfection in countless films - remember Kalpataru's "Ghar Ghar Ki Kahani" where, in true Gandhian fashion, she offers the other cheek to her hubby following a marital discord, or K. Viswanath's "Sargam", her first Hindi film, where she bears all the taunts and torments of her stepmother with the patience of a missionary; "Swarg Se Sundar", "Aulad", "Maa" or "Sapnon Ka Mandir" where her one-point mission was to have a child, safe, secure, bone-dry?
In film after film, she brought to fore all the traits Indian men wanted to see in their wives - she was beautiful, bejewelled, docile, domesticated. Even as the daughter of a rich industrialist in "Kaamchor" she managed to sing: Tum mere swami main tumri daasi. As a legal eagle in "Kanoon Ki Aawaz," she sneaked in a Karwa Chauth number - this was part of her `item' numbers! In her, many middle-aged mothers saw the image of an ideal daughter-in-law. Little wonder she could not be a dream date for young men! Yet she was just the kind of girl they would gladly take to meet their moms!
It might have been retrograde cinema for some, but Jaya Prada was not complaining. In fact, she went on record saying: "It is difficult to look beautiful when you cry but when I shed a tear on the screen, the box office overflows in sympathy!" Now the same woman is opening a new chapter in her career, even if she insists: "I am the same old Jaya Prada." Old? Yes, well, maybe. Same? No. Even if she believes that her "fans would not like to see me on the screen as mother or as a character artiste. Mother or mother-in-law roles are little premature."
It has been 23 years since Jaya Prada danced into the hearts of cine-goers with "Sargam". Now she wants to bury the past. She has her priorities clearly listed: "I would like to do heroine-oriented roles. I stand a better chance of getting them in Hindi films considering that few South Indian films focus on women. However, it is goodbye to subdued women roles. I have had enough of them. Now after greater exposure to the world thanks to my stint in politics, I can see a trend emerging where women are getting more assertive, not just in the metropolises but even in the interiors. So, I would like to do strong women roles now." It is something she hardly did at the peak of her career in the mid-1980s when for every "Sharaabi", there were countless "Tohfas", when for every "Mawaali", there were many "Kanoon Ki Zanjeer." About the only time she attempted to break the shackles was when she played a bandit in Mahendra Shah's "Zakhmi Zameen" opposite an unsung Aditya Pancholi.
Her exposure to politics has helped her mature as an actress... with (left to right) Laxmi Sehgal, social worker Bindra Karat and Shabana Azmi, cine star and another M.P., Jaya Prada is rallying for 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament.
Now, it will be different, she promises. "Though I would like to do a `Sargam' I cannot run around the trees anymore. The heroes opposite whom I started my career have graduated to other roles too. I am not looking for the mother with streaks of grey in her hair kind of roles. I am merely looking at roles of substance. They don't have to be of weak women, just important to the story."
Incidentally, she recently rejected Krishna Vamsi's offer to play mother to Karisma Kapoor in Boney Kapoor's "Shakti." In stead, she went ahead and signed debutant director Mahesh Tilekar's "Aadhaar," a Marathi film where she makes a special appearance. "This is my way of paying tribute to Maharashtra, the State which has made me what I am today as an actress. It is a small but interesting role."
That is not all. She is now dabbling in different kinds of cinema. Even if she is thirsty to do parallel cinema, and ready to do it for free, she is also negotiating with Yash Chopra for a break - incidentally, she has never worked with him in the past. Meanwhile, she is busy playing a Tamil Brahmin priestess in a Malayalam film. And for fans in her home State - Andhra Pradesh - she will come across as a "wily politician" which is something she has "never attempted to do in the past". For Tamil fans, she is reportedly due to play a divorce lawyer! And there is more to come.
In Bollywood, the lady is beginning to do what she did not dare to do a decade ago. She has just signed a K. C. Bokadia film where she is supposed to play a police commissioner. And just this month she was signed by veteran Sawan Kumar Tak for his forthcoming "Dil Pardesi Ho Gaya".
The lady is clearly onto better things in life. She has also just made her directorial debut with the launch of "Class Medal," a Telugu film starring her nephew Siddharth with Diya Mirza, Reema Sen and Yukta Mookhey.
Though her comeback film to Hindi cinema, "Bharat Bhagya Vidhata," bombed at the box office, it did show the lady in a different light. Playing the wife to Shatrughan Sinha's Home Minister, she was no longer the dutiful woman waiting at home for her man. She played a school principal who gets kidnapped by Kashmiri militants, and in turn reforms them!
Little wonder the aquiline-nosed lady, who was once called "the best reflection of the mirror" and "the most beautiful woman in the film industry" by Satyajit Ray, is enjoying it. "It is fun to be on the sets again and I feel touched that so many people still want me after so many years. I have been around for 23 years now but still the thrill of facing the camera is unmatched. I feel I am still learning."
New things, one would add. And wait for the new innings to unfold. The joy is in the waiting.
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