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Journalism of Courage
“Kajol, how mad are you on a scale of one to hundred?,” asks writer-director Suparn Varma from across the ballroom of a suburban Mumbai hotel. “Three hundred,” comes Kajol’s prompt reply as she gets ready for the next round of promotional activities ahead of the release of her first web-series, The Trial: Pyaar Kaanoon Dhokha, on Disney+Hotstar on July 14. In a room teeming with people, Kajol’s energy is unmissable as she engages in banter and laughs heartily in between her interviews.
Kajol is headlining this Indian adaptation of the much-talked about American show The Good Wife as Nayonika, a mother of two and a lawyer who goes back to work after a long gap, following her husband’s arrest. As she navigates her complicated personal life, she starts working as a junior lawyer. Claiming that Nayonika’s struggle felt “personal”, the actor says: “Everyone identifies with Noyonika. Somewhere down the line, we know what a woman goes through. We (girls) are told as children that you eventually have to become a wife and a mother. Whether we choose eventually to take up those roles is up to us.”
For Varma, the show’s director, Kajol — whom he calls “the nation’s heartthrob” — was the first choice for Nayonika. “The show begins with the man she loves breaking her heart. She is starting from the depth of emotional despair since the life she was living for the last 20 years is a lie,” says Varma, who directed Rana Naidu (2023) and co-directed The Family Man 2. Varma is all praises for Kajol’s “madness” and energy. “She does not come to the set over prepared. She loves to construct scenes with the other actors. That mirrors my style,” he says.
Having watched The Good Wife, Kajol was familiar with the scope and nuances of this role. “I was really excited when I was offered this. But I was curious about how the show would be adapted in an Indian context since it’s set in American society,” she says and compliments the writers for having adapted it “so cleverly”. While The Good Wife series ended in 2016 after seven seasons, the story of The Trial unfolds in the post-pandemic world.
The original show famously shines a light on ‘mommy gap’ — the struggle that mothers encounter in restarting their career after a long parental break. Kajol jokes that the only ‘mommy gap’ she had to deal with was not having a flat stomach. One a more serious note, she says maternity breaks didn’t affect her since she never stopped working. “When (daughter) Nysa was two-and-a-half years old, I did Fanaa (2006). Then, My Name is Khan (2010) followed,” she says.
While she is aware that pursuing a career can be difficult for those who don’t have the support system, Kajol has lived by her mother Tanuja’s mantra. “My mother believed in quality over quantity. She told my sister (Tanisha Mukerji) and me that the time she spent with us was all ours. Even though she was working, we never felt that she was not there in our lives. She has raised us with her values and ethics.” she says. Yet, mother’s guilt is something that’s hard to ignore. “I am not at home today and my son has a holiday. He is going out with his friends. But I still feel a little guilty that I am not there to organise his life and make sure he has eaten,” she says.
In the show, Nayonika is a product of society’s imagination of a conventional woman. “We all have these fixed ideas about what we are going to be. As women, we are taught to be practical. We are told not to live in a fantasy world. No Mills and Boon hero is going to come. He is on a tortoise, living very far away and he is going to take 20 years to arrive. Meanwhile, you get married and have children,” says the actor, who has been part of several landmark romantic movies such as Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998).
The show’s shooting took about 45 days. “That’s pretty much what a feature film takes. However, when you are shooting eight episodes over that period, it has material equivalent to three films. Since we were not shooting chronologically, one doesn’t realise when a particular scene comes. That’s something you have to be careful about,” she says, adding that she enjoyed the long format storytelling.
So, is there a possibility that Kajol will be seen more on screen now that her children have grown up? “I do have more time in hand. I feel less guilty about taking time out and going to work since they also need me less,” admits the actor who also features in the Amit R Sharma-directed segment of Lust Stories 2, which released on Netflix on June 29.
