‘Amitabh Bachchan must have been frustrated in Parliament’: Jaya Bachchan dislikes husband’s ‘not free with his opinion’

In a recent conversation with Barkha Dutt at Mojo Story’s event We The Women, Jaya Bachchan reflected candidly on her relationship, admitting that she and Amitabh are “very different from each other.” Joking about their contrasting temperaments, she quipped, “Can you imagine if I had married someone like me? He would be in Vrindavan and I would be somewhere else!”

She elaborated on their differences: “He doesn’t speak. He is not free with his opinions like I am. He keeps things to himself, but he knows how to convey what he wants at the right time in the right way—which I don’t. He is a different personality.” Laughing, she added, “Maybe that’s why I married him.”

A usually private person, Jaya opened up unusually freely, even confessing that for her, it had been “love at first sight.” One of the qualities she most admires in Amitabh, she said, is his discipline.

Jaya also spoke about her views on marriage, calling the institution “outdated.” Asked whether Amitabh shares that belief, she joked, “I have never asked him his views on marriage. Maybe he will call it the biggest mistake of his life—but I don’t want to hear that!”

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Contrary to her often serious public image, Jaya appeared relaxed and humorous during the interaction. At one point, when questioned, she laughed and said, “I have become short of hearing because in Parliament you hear so much screaming. Thank God I have not lost my mind—just a little bit of my hearing.”

She went on to recall her entry into politics, which came after Amitabh’s own brief and turbulent political stint. “When I wanted to enter public life, my family was not too happy,” she admitted. “Not because they thought I was wrong, but because they were scared that I would blurt out anything.”

Speaking of Amitabh’s time in Parliament, she said, “He must have been very frustrated. He has opinions, but I don’t think he felt that was the forum for him to express them. I don’t care—I express my opinion. I am a daughter of a journalist, don’t forget that.”

When asked whether she supported her husband’s political foray, she replied, “I supported him. I did door-to-door campaigning—nobody used to do that in those days. My belief was that the country has made you what you are; you owe it to the country, and you must give back in some way.”

Amitabh Bachchan bowed out of politics in 1987 after joining in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984 and the anti-Sikh riots that followed soon after. As his close friend Rajiv Gandhi took the reins of the Congress, he asked Big B to join the party and contest the elections from Allahabad. While the actor won with a record margin, he later describes his decision to join politics as “emotional” and a “mistake.” He was named in the Bofors scandal.

“When my family and I were loaded with the accusations of the Bofors Scandal, they painted every aspect of our existence with the darkest colours ever… 25 years later, the prosecutor on the event, makes public the truth – the name of the Bachchans were ‘planted’!! 25 years later…!!,” he wrote in his blog. The CBI gave a clean chit to Rajiv Gandhi in 2004 and the Swedish whistle-blower in the case gave Bachchan a clean chit in 2012. The actor, however, later said that he had to live under the burden of “deceit and lies” for a long time. Amitabh has kept away from politics ever since.