Ex Miss World and Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan turned 42 today. The beautiful actress, who stepped away from the public eye after her daughter Aaradhya was born, recently came back to the big screen with Sanjay Gupta’s Jazbaa after 5 long years. In an interview todnaindia.com, the Bachchan bahu spoke openly about her work and personal life.
On being a working mother, Ash says: “Nobody wants to leave their kid and go work. I do admit that if the nature of my job allows for me to be able to have my child along, not feel the lack of my presence, then I am going to make the effort to accomplish that and at the same time, give her a very normal childhood and be a very normal mother to her daughter. I do refer to my filming locations as an office because I want Aaradhya to understand that I am a working mother who goes to office because that’s what it should be. ‘Shooting’ is a very strange term to her.”
Talking about her life changing overnight after winning the Miss World crown, the actress admits she felt a sense of huge reponsibilty. She says:”You don’t just want to be a beauty queen, but also a woman of substance. You need to learn things almost overnight and then one comes into films — taking it up as a profession was tough for me because I was academically oriented and working towards a degree. So if I wanted to bring that into my career, I’d have to do that with confidence.”
On her role as a wife and then as a mother, Ash maintains that everything happened at breakneck speed, she says: “Marriage? Wow! Suddenly overnight, we went from being dearest of friends to looking to being a couple and starting a family together — you know how quickly that happened — and there was so much going on with me shooting for a historical film (Jodhaa Akbar). At that phase, you automatically realise it’s all about your upbringing, your family, the values that you have always cherished. Bringing about that balance on another realm was important to me. But of course, the absolute unknown, most beautiful and blessed out learning phase has been motherhood! I am eternally grateful to God and Aaradhya that I had and am continuing to have this incredible challenge.”
About husband and best friend Abhishek, she says:“He’s a friend, companion, husband and a father, but I think the fact that he’s my bestest friend pretty much encapsulates it all. We are a very normal couple. Abhishek and I sometimes joke about being second siblings. We both share and talk a lot about what we are feeling. Sometimes, we have so much to say that we want to be the first to share it. So I have to say this first: we are both good listeners, but also extremely talkative.”
