BHARTI JAFFREY

Prodigal daughter

She’s never cared for name-dropping. With an illustrious father like Ashok Kumar, sister Preety Gangoly, daughter Anurdha Patel and husband Hamid Jaffrey (Saeed Jaffrey’s brother) as her kith and kin, Bharti Jaffrey could be excused if she made a big noise of her connections. But Neena Gupta’s anxiety-ridden, on-screen mama in Saans has opted to remain in cognito and make it on her own steam. Deepa Karmalkar discovers the Prodigal daughter

“I have a story to tell”

There is a haunting familiarity about her visage. The mystery enveloping the lady is enough to prompt an enquiry. When accosted with the query - “where do you come from?”, she mumbles something about Pearl Padamsee’s theatre background. Further prodding - specifically about her family background - elicits an unexpected response. Drawing a deep breath, she says, “I am Ashok Kumar’s daughter.” Her eyes dance excitedly as she refers to her rich heritage. “Preeti and I look alike and people often go up to her to congratulate her on Saans,” she laughs.

Ah! that was the “familiarity” that was haunting us. The mystery solved, the next question that begs to be asked is: how come she took to acting so late in life and why has she been so secretive about her family connections? A genial smile lights up Bharti’s face, as she exclaims, “Oh! there’s so much to tell.” And she does.

“Who will marry you?”

“I must have hardly two when I would visit the sets with papa and end up imitating Devika Rani. As far as I can remember - I always wanted to be an actress,” she discloses.

What took her so long to realise her ambition? “In those days acting wan’t a very respectable profession for a girl. Papa had reservations about letting me act. ‘Who will marry you then’, was his constant refrain. His first engagement was broken at the last minute just because he was an actor. That made him wary about letting me take up acting,” she elucidates.

It’s hard to believe that a spirited woman like her would have submitted to her father’s wishes without a murmur. “Those were the days when you just didn’t press your point, you were conditioned to obey your elders,” she reasons. “I guess I lacked the courage of conviction then. Look at Preeti, she rebelled and got her way, didn’t she,” she adds.

“Nargis-Raj Kapoor starrers were taboo”

“We had a very protected childhood and being the eldest I had to bear the brunt of my father’s discipline,” she recalls. Dada Moni, himself a progressive man, was, paradoxically, very conservative when it came to his family. “We were given the best convent education; we were encouraged to use papa’s huge library. But, we were made to wear sarees from the age of 12! Papa never let us play cards- he felt it was a decadent activity. I was allowed to watch only one film in a month and that too with a chaperone. We could read film mags, and Nargis-Raj Kapoor starrers were taboo because their passion was palpable on-screen,” she recalls with laughter.

Nonetheless, Dada Moni was a very doting papa who regaled his children with his “magical tales” in the evenings. But his filmic persona was off-limits. The kids were never exposed to any gossip about their papa. Their mother struck a balance between domesticity and her father’s stardom. “Maa came from a very humble background - she was very sentimental and papa was her God. She was very protective about us, but somehow I was always closer to papa,” reveals Bharti.

“We have inherited a strong set of values from our parents - they have inculcated discipline and dignity of labour in us. We had to wash our socks, hankies and ribbons. Even today I am rather finnicky about all the household chores - I cook, clean and wash the clothes myself. I make it a point to finish the cooking before setting out on a morning shift,” she elaborates.

Of her siblings, Rupa, who’s married to Deven Varma, is settled in Pune; Preeti conducts her acting classes; and their brother Arup is in the finance business. “Rupa and Arup are rather laid-back, but Preeti is passionate about what she did” she relates.

“Real-life Khatta Meetha situation”

After matrimony and maternity, how did Bharti manage to redeem her acting ambition? “Oh well, I fell in love with my dentist, married him and had three kids. During their shcooling in Campion, I met Pearl Padamsee. She coached kids in dramtics, I joined her troupe as a volunteer. I did many plays including Man From La Mancha, Wiz, and Deception. I assisted Vijaya Mehta with costumes and sets of Letters To The Daughter. I met Hamid, my second husband, on the stage,” she reminisces fondly.

Ironically, Dada Moni was shooting for Khatta Meetha the year his daughter was faced with a similar situation. “I had three kids, Hamid had three of his own - we shared common interests and passions in life - so we tied the knot,” she recalls. Home, hearth and six kids kept Bharti busy and buzzing.

“Indian women are so repressed”

“It’s strange how you go after what you are deprived of - I always wanted to be an actress, while my daughter, Anuradha, took up acting just for the heck of it. She takes after her aunt - she’s contented with making a home and raising kids. She would be a worthy succesor to her grandpa’s legacy,” she reflects.

It was Bharti who goaded a reticent Anuradha into launching Orchid, a finishing school for women. “It was during that long strike in ’87 that I suggested Minnie (Anuradha) and Amrita (Dalip Tahil’s ex-wife) to conduct personality development classes for women. Indian women are so repressed they need help to open up and be self-reliant,” she opines. Being a trained interior decorator, Bharti is a faculty member of Orchid.

With all the kids settled at long last Bharti found time to pursue her life-long dream. “My motto is - life begins at 50, I am still very enthusiastic about learning new things. I joined Satyadev Dube’s acting workshop and then enrolled myself in Preeti’s acting classes. Believe me she slipped me through the hoop for those three months of rigorous training. It fortified my confidence,” she acknowledges.

“Kanwaljeet was taken aback”

Things started happening soon after as she was offered a role in Preeti’s impending tele-serial. At the same time Devika Bhojwani offered the Jaffreys a chance to play Nisha Singh’s mother in Plus Channel’s Mouthful Of Sky. “They required an English speaking couple - we fitted the bill,” she recounts.

And then Neena Gupta cast her in the role of her anxious mother in Saans. “Which meant that Kanwaljeet’s real-life ma-in-law was playing his reel-life ma-in-law as well. He was really taken aback at the prospect of acting with me. But Neena insisted, so there,” she beams triumphantly. After 61 episodes of togetherness things do seem to be well-settled between the two.

“Papa gifted his trophy to Neena”

How does Dada Moni take to her acting career? Does he give her any tips in acting? “Papa never misses Saans. He follows my performance closely and critically. Since red colour gets smudged on TV he tells me to avoid red lipstick. ‘Lal lipstick lagbe na,’ he says. And like everybody else he always wants to know what happens next,” she relates bemusedly.

Does Dada Moni ever confess to any guilt for nipping her acting prospects in the bud? “Sure, he feels a little guilty about not letting me act,” stresses Bharti. “But he’s very happy that I found the groove now. He says it’s very difficult to make it look easy. He always maintains that we have to be true to ourselves,” she adds.

Dada Moni is such an avid follower of Saans that recently when Bharti took Neena Gupta over to meet him, he gifted one of his trophies to her.

Other roles

Apart from a marginal role in Challenge, Bharti has shot for Kalpana Lajmi’s The Dawn - a serialised depiction of freedom struggle in Assam. She plays a “fatuous, flighty nouveau-riche woman of the 1930’s”. In Sujoy Mukherjee’s youthful comedy Dil Deke Dekho she plays the genial land lady. “I want to play a range of characters. I don’t want to be relegated to playing the persecuted mama,” she maintains.

Any dream role that she has in mind? “I’d love to play a protagonist. And then there’s this life-long itch to be associated with cinema. I want to learn to script and direct a film. I want to be in charge one day,” she muses dreamily.

“I love papa’s Mahal”

Bharti is a die-hard movie-buff. She has taken film appreciation courses from FTII, NCPA and she never misses out on film festivals. For one so passionately involved in analysing the craft of filmmaking, how does she evaluate her papa’s films? “I love that particular shot in Mahal where papa is mesmerised by Madhubala’s singing and he burns his hand with his cigar to check if whether it’s for freal. That shot is so eloquent - just a look or gesture conveys it all,” she says.

Last but not the least, why has she maintained such a low profile, why does she shy away from flaunting her family name? “I don’t go around talking about myself. I don’t want to bask in reflected glory. I want to break the ground on my own,” she reasons. That you certainly have, we hand it to you.

“Papa is a renaissance man”

Recently when the Indian government conferred Padma Bhushan on papa, I was so excited that I was almost shouting from the roof-top and all the old man had to say was, “Kaunsa bada sher maar liya?” Really he’s so humble. Other than major Indian languages papa is proficient in French, German and Persian. He paints, he’s musical - he has bequeathed his cottage piano to me and that’s my prize possesion.

Papa practises homeopathy for charity, he has the healing touch. At 86, he’s very alert and his sense of humour is intact. Except for his asthmatic bouts, papa is quite hale and hearty. Touch wood! He watches sports on TV. And, of course, he follows Saans very religiously. At times he’s even magnanimous in complementing me with aakhir beti kiski hai?

He lives in one corner of the town in Chembur and it’s an expedition for me to go there all the way to look him up. But he never makes any demands. ‘Why do you have to come this far when we can talk over the phone?’ he chides me. Papa has tremendous inner strenght. If I am able to achieve even a quarter of what he has done, I will consider my life made.