Jaya Bachchan, and Amitabh Bachchan visit to Bhopal in 2008: Bhopal’s most famous “jamai raja” is coming to town, probably for the longest period since he wed Jaya Bhaduri 28 years ago. Amitabh Bachchan will be in the Madhya Pradesh capital for about two months from the last week of January for Prakash Jha’s new movie Aarakshan that also features Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Prateik Babbar and Manoj Bajpai. Aarakshan dwells on the contentious issue of reservation in government jobs. In Bhopal, there is great excitement over its celebrity“jamai raja”. Jaya, a Bengali, hailed from the city, having studied at the St Joseph’s Convent before joining the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune.
Her father, the late Taroon Coomar Bhaduri, was a Calcutta newspaper’s special representative in Bhopal in the late 1950s and 1960s. Her father, fondly addressed as Taroon Da, was an accomplished writer and a stage artiste. His Bengali novel Abhishapta Chambal (Accursed Chambal) has been translated into several languages.
Taroon Da had served as chairperson of the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Corporation during the regime of Arjun Singh. Saif too has a strong Bhopal connection as his great grandfather Nawab Hamidullah Khan, The last nawab of Bhopal, and grandmother Sajida Sultan served as regent till Indira Gandhi abolished privy purses.
In Bhopal, politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, poets, artists and prominent citizens are vying to invite Amitabh and Saif to dinners and social events. Sources said director Jha was taken aback with local “VIPs’” requests to plan meetings with Amitabh and Saif. Some are even counting on the “Bihar connection” to influence Jha.
Efforts are being made to ensure that Amitabh, currently brand ambassador of Gujarat, gets to meet chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan ahead of others. Like Amitabh, Shivraj is a strict vegetarian.
Some potential hosts are flaunting their proximity to the late “Taroon Da”. A retired IAS official, who did not wish to be named, narrated how Taroon Da had told him the way Amitabh chose to inform him about marrying Jaya, a far more successful and accomplished actress in May 1973.
“Taroon Da said he got a surprise trunk call at Bhopal. The caller said: ‘Baba, I am Amit. Can you and Ma (Indira Bhaduri) come to Bombay tomorrow?’”
When Taroon Da wondered why they were being asked to rush, Amitabh reportedly said that Indira would tell him. “Damn it,” Indira told him adding, “you are getting old. They are getting married.”The “secret marriage” attended by few, including Sanjay Gandhi, took place on June 3, 1973.
Taroon Da was a known atheist but his wife was not. She insisted that the marriage should be proper a Bengali affair. A Bengali priest was arranged with some difficulty after he reportedly protested at solemnising a marriage between a Bengali-Brahmin (Jaya) and a non-Bengali, non-Brahmin (Amitabh).
Subsequently, a reception took place in Bhopal. The young Amitabh was then a picture of humility. According to those who attended the reception Amitabh would touch the feet of anyone who knew Taroon Da.
When introduced to the VIPs (state ministers, MLAs, senior civil servants) Amitabh would say “Sir”.
In an article, Taroon Da stoutly denied that he was unhappy about the Jaya-Amitabh marriage. He said his second daughter too got married to a non-Bengali, non-Brahmin — a Roman Catholic.
“In February 1979 when my second daughter got married in Lucknow, Amit was in his elements. He played dholak, danced and sang. On the last day of ceremonies, he took upon himself the role of a bearer, serving lunch to guests — of course in the process, swallowing quite a few rasogollas himself.”
Soon after the Jaya- Amitabh marriage, Taroon Da was amused to get attention of a different kind. “Wherever I went, I was besieged with requests for Jaya-Amitabh photographs. My wife and I were asked to sign autograph books not because we were someone but what we were to Jaya and Amitabh. My wife was given a reception at a hill station and made patron of a sports organisation. I was asked to open a new judo club — because Amitabh was supposed to be an angry young man,” he had said in one account.
In another town, he was invited to speak on “Amitabh’s affairs”. He later wrote: “This request unnerved me… and I told them I was too busy managing my own affairs to bother about someone else’s.”