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Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan have been married for over 52 years now and unlike the Bollywood weddings today, the two had a low-key wedding with just a handful of people in attendance. Jaya was one of the biggest stars of this era, and Amitabh, too, was on his way to becoming the ‘angry young man’, and while Amitabh reached the peak of his popularity and fame in the subsequent years, Jaya stopped working shortly after getting married. She only appeared in a handful of films, and after welcoming her daughter Shweta in 1973, this number dropped even further. Jaya clarified in later years that she stopped working of her own volition.
In his autobiography, Dashdwaar Se Sopaan Tak, the poet-writer spoke about the time when Amitabh and Jaya got married and recalled the time when Jaya had to go for a shoot just a couple of days after getting married. He wrote that he did not like her working when there were three men in the house who could take care of the expenses.
Harivanshrai Bachchan shared that the wedding was planned hurriedly and as soon as the family decided June 3 as the date, it was also decided that this would be held in a private setting. From the Bachchans’ side, only the Rajan family (old family friends) and the Gandhi family would be invited. Jaya’s family also wanted to avoid the crowds so they decided to host the wedding at a family friend’s house instead of their own so the news could be kept under wraps.
He shared that his wife Teji called Indira Gandhi, as they were old friends and was told that Sanjay Gandhi would be in attendance from their end. “Teji called Indira Gandhi on the phone. As we had expected, she congratulated but expressed that she wouldn’t be able to attend. Actually, we did not even want her to come because if she had come, then we wouldn’t be able to keep the wedding a secret. She said that Sanjay would be there to represent the Gandhi family,” he shared.
For the pre-wedding function, Jaya’s father Taroon Kumar Bhaduri came over to the Bachchan residence for the ‘var-pooja’, and Harivanshrai Bachchan went to their house for the ‘kanya-pooja’. Here, Amitabh’s father sensed that perhaps the Bhaduri family wasn’t pleased by the nuptials. “I saw something unexpected there. Apart from Jaya, no one’s face had even a hint of happiness,” he shared.
On the day of the wedding, the Bachchan residence was decorated with some lights, just for good luck. But this was starting to gain some attention and when the neighbours wondered why, they were told that this was for Amitabh’s film shoot, and they believed so. 14 people, including the groom, left for the wedding venue in three cars, and quickly rushed to the inside of the venue so no one could get to know about the secret wedding.
Harivanshrai Bachchan expressed that this was the first time that he saw Jaya with some ‘lajja’ (shyness) on her face. “Jaya had done some makeup and for the first time, I saw some ‘lajja’ on her face, which I had never seen before. ‘Lajja’ is such an integral part of beauty, I realised that for the first time. She was a fine actress so she could have acted that she was feeling shy, but in that moment, her expression looked genuine,” he wrote.
He shared that the wedding was conducted by a Bengali priest and the rituals went on till late at night. As they were about to leave after the rituals, the two fathers hugged each other and hoped to exchange some kind words but what happened next surprised Harivanshrai Bachchan. “Before leaving, I hugged Jaya’s father and congratulated him by saying, ‘Congrats on getting a son-in-law like Amitabh’. I was hoping he would say, ‘Congrats on getting a daughter-in-law like Jaya’ but he said, ‘Mera toh ghar hi ujad gaya (My family is destroyed)’.”
Even though this was a strange exchange, they moved on from here and him and Amitabh’s mother Teji, decided to bend the rules as they welcomed Jaya in their family. “We have a tradition that when a new bride comes to the house for the first time, the mother-in-law will touch her feet, for the first and the last time, and after that, she will never touch her feet, only the daughter-in-law will touch the mother-in-law’s feet. While welcoming her, the mother-in-law will say, ‘Enter this house like a goddess who is here to bless us’. And in response, the daughter-in-law will say, ‘I, the goddess, step in this house. I am entering in a palanquin, and will leave on a pyre’,” he wrote as he explained that this was a way of the daughter-in-law to promise that she belonged to her new house for life, no matter what.
He shared that when him and Teji got married, he did not allow Teji to say these lines, and make such promises, and they decided to do the same with Jaya. “Teji and I decided that we would welcome Jaya by touching her feet, but we would not ask her to say those words, since Teji had also not said those words,” he wrote.
Four days after the wedding, Jaya and Amitabh were to leave for a month-long honeymoon to England but before that could happen, Jaya had to finish some work commitments, which her father-in-law was not very happy with. “After four days, Amit and Jaya were going to leave for their honeymoon in England. But before that, Jaya had a film shoot. She was about to leave for work, and I said, ‘There are three men who earn in this house and the newlywed bride is going out to work, I don’t like this’. Well, Jaya had already committed to this shoot, she couldn’t have changed her plans,” he said.
In an earlier chat on What The Hell Navya, Jaya had shared that Amitabh had told her before getting married that he did not wish for her to work regularly. “But he had told me, ‘I definitely don’t want a wife who will be 9 to 5. Please work, but not every day. You choose your projects and work with the right people’,” Jaya shared. Amitabh, in later years, credited Jaya for choosing her family over work. He shared at India Today Conclave in 2014, “One thing I find very admirable about Jaya is that she chose to give preference to home and not films. There was no obstacle from me ever, it was her decision. In marriages, all decisions are taken by the wife.”
Jaya continued to work in films sporadically after getting married but as the years went by, her film appearances reduced significantly, but she never stepped away from the camera. She was last seen in the 2023 film Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani.
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