A force of nature, is how a fellow journalist describes Kajol to me, a few days before my first-ever encounter with the actor. True to the popular image, I can sense the unbounded energy in her animated voice from behind the closed doors of Jaisalmer Suite at Juhu’s Sun N Sand hotel, as she wraps up one interview before moving on to mine. Ironically, in the course of our conversation, she describes her mother, grandmother and great grandmother as “tsunami, hurricane and earthquake”. “There were different kinds of forces of nature around me while I was growing up. There was no choice but to absorb all that into who I am,” she says.
Kajol is in a chatty mood. We enter just as she is recording a short video message on the phone for her interviewer’s husband, appreciating his “good taste” for being her fan. Predictably vivacious, in a traditional all-black salwar kurta , a small black bindi just above the famous unibrow, she is hungry but does not want us to wait till she finishes eating her fish and chips. In between mouthfuls, and an Americano from Starbucks, she shares sundry thoughts, a lot of them about her mother, actor Tanuja. Parenthood and raising kids seem to be the theme of the day. Fittingly, because the titular role she plays in Pradeep Sarkar’s new film, Helicopter Eela , is all about that, and more. Based on Anand Gandhi’s play Beta , Kaagdo it has Kajol as the single mum of teenager Vivan, played by Riddhi Sen, who recently won the best actor award at the 65th National Film Awards. Last heard, Amitabh Bachchan would be doing a cameo, sharing the screen with her 17 years after Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001).
An enviable track record
With Helicopter Eela, Kajol returns to Bollywood after three years. We last saw her in Dilwale in 2015. In between there was also Soundarya Rajinikanth’s Velaiilla Pattadhari 2 aka VIP 2 (2017) where she did a negative turn opposite Dhanush, her second Tamil film, almost two decades after Rajiv Menon’s Minsara Kanavu (1997), dubbed into Hindi as Sapnay . Incidentally, the actor was the voice of Elastigirl in the Hindi dubbed version of Brad Bird’s Incredibles 2 .
It is a habit of sorts for her these days — to stay away from the limelight and return when she wants to; when a role attracts her and not merely for the dictates of the box office. At a time when “out of sight” quickly morphs into “out of [viewers’] mind” for most celebs, she has managed to endure in the audience consciousness. Despite not being in the race and notwithstanding her off-the-wall ways and unpredictable temperament.
A new generation of heroines is now ruling the roost, but that does not bother her. She has already seen a glorious run at the box office through the ’90s right up till 2010. Baazigar (1993), Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge (1995), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), Fanaa (2006) and My Name Is Khan (2010) are just a few blockbusters littered on her CV. She has won the best actress Filmfare five times, a record she shares with her aunt, late Nutan. She has even lifted the trophy for best performance in a negative role for Gupt . And to cap it all, there is the Padma Shri she was awarded in 2011.
Her own woman
She is said to have always been very comfortable in her skin and that appears to be growing more pronounced with time, as she has grown into life and her profession. “It’s always been a part of my personality. I’ve always been comfortable with who or what I am, whether I was wearing a jeans and tee, or a ball gown on the red carpet.”
At the stage of life and career that she is in, Kajol is clear-eyed that her roles and films have to grow with her just as she has to grow with them. “It’s got to do with your mindspace. Where and who you are mentally [at a point in time]. It also has to do with wanting to do something else. I want to do something that challenges me, something I wouldn’t have believed myself capable of. That’s the reason why I am where I am today.”
So her latest film is about helicopter parenting and being a single mother. What made her pick the film was not just the story, but also the way it has been told. Stories about single parenthood and working mothers come with a seriousness attached. However, this script, she says, “has told what it had to without losing its sense of humour”. At the core of it is the mother-son relationship, which she feels single parents and their kids will understand and empathise with the most. “The bond that a single parent has with the child has an amazing tensile strength. The kids have this maturity. Somewhere down the line, it’s a co-parenting system that develops — the parent is bringing up the child but, at the same time, the child is also bringing up the parent in the subtlest of ways. I am not saying it doesn’t happen otherwise, but with single parent families it’s more obvious. Maybe because it’s a twosome unit. There is no third party in it,” she says.
- Kajol is not an avid film and TV viewer. She is more of a reader and currently into “teenage fantasy fiction”. Inspired by her 15-year-old daughter, Nysa? “My kids are inspired by me,” she is quick to shoot back. Ask her to recommend books for teens, and she professes love for The Hunger Game series by Suzanne Collins. Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series, however, does not meet with her approval. She is currently in love with Darynda Jones and Sara Douglass. Moving on to more mature books, Ashok Banker’s Ramayana series tops the list at the moment, specially Prince in Exile . “I love every kind of mythology, from Greek to Norse to our own,” she says, adding she had been an Amar Chitra Katha fan and had collected several volumes that she lost around the time she got married.
- The library at home, of 700-800 books, comprises only those that she would come back to. “I don’t read with an aim in my head. Reading for me is pure pleasure. I put [my mind] away in a packet and go into my own beautiful little world. There is nothing dramatic in this world; nobody wants me, needs me, expects anything of me. It’s what reading means to me.”
A firm touch
You wonder if she would she have experienced it closely with her own mother, who raised her and sister Tanisha after her divorce with husband, filmmaker Shomu Mukherjee. Fortunately for Kajol, there was the entire extended family — grandmother, great grandmother, aunts and uncles — to fall back on. “At the same time, there is a certain closeness that develops between a mother and her children that is just about them,” she adds.
She looks back at Tanuja as a forward-thinking woman and admits that she would not have had the guts to be the kind of parent her mum was to her. “She taught us about things like charity and compassion, forgiveness, about how to leave your temper behind, and about death. All these are things we don’t talk about. That is something I hope I do with my kids.”
Moving back to the reel from real, Kajol thinks every mother and child will identify with her Eela. Specially in her obsession with the dabba , the lunchbox: “I know my mum and even her mum are extremely possessive about their dabbas . Eela is just a slightly more OCD version of what we all are. Indian mothers will be like that. We are not changing.” However, Tanuja was not a helicopter mum. “I only remember her fights over my food. I had to eat whatever was there on my plate.” She does not consider herself a helicopter parent either. “I am more like a gentle hovering breeze,” she says.
MUMBAI, INDIA - 2017/11/29: Indian film actress and Lifebuoy Handwashing Ambassador "Kajol" join hands with Lifebuoy's help a child reach 5 campaign launch in Mumbai at Hotel St. Regis in Mumbai. (Photo by Azhar Khan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Power in numbers
Motherhood is not all. There is also a gender thread to Eela . “It’s about the relationship that women have with themselves, with all the little tags that society has put on them.” She takes it all back to how women are changing and so is society and the audience, which, in turn, reflects in the roles being written for women. “When you talk of a Wonder Woman doing fabulously well you realise that society has changed,” she says.
What next after Helicopter Eel a? There is nothing on her plate, other than playing herself in a cameo in Aanand L Rai’s Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Zero . What larger aims in life? She does not have the temperament to take to direction, but would love to write even though she is not sure if she would have the patience for such a long and solo process. “But I won’t have to deal with anyone else’s ego, only mine,” she laughs.
At 44, Kajol’s life is full anyhow. There are the kids and the family, and now a production house that she is involved in creatively. “So if I take time out and do a film, I want to do it well. I must have something to do in it.” She is unapologetic and categorical that she would only do what she thinks would be a good film. “If a lot of time is spent on a film then it may as well be time well spent.” Or else there are always her books, coffee and family to go back to.
