Legendary Bollywood actress Jaya Bachchan has been embroiled in a heated dispute where she has been falsely accused of calling Farah Khan’s latest film Happy New Year ‘nonsensical.’ The film, which stars Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, as well as her son Abhishek Bachchan, received mixed reviews from critics but nevertheless went on to gross over RS. 300 Crores worldwide.
Jayaji was speaking during an In-Conversation event at the Tata Literature Live festival with writer Siddharth Dhanvant Shangvi where she reportedly was referring to Abhishek’s performance in the film as ‘nonsensical.’ This has since been taken out of context by various sections of the media and has left Jayaji feeling humiliated, as the Bachchan family are close with Shah Rukh Khan.
Writing about the incident on a popular blog, Siddharth mentioned the following where he has defended Jayaji and what she said during the event. “What she had said to me was in regard to her son’s acting abilities – that he could pull off the broad range of comedy she herself was incapable of. Jaya Bachchan’s comment was not solely about the film, Happy New Year, as much as what it extracted in terms of acting equity out of Abhishek. And yet the comment was pulled out of its original framework and played up as a criticism of the film and, by extension, of its producers, director and the other stars. This is not what our talk was about, and neither was it my intention to discuss anything other than my guest’s own work.”
Adding to this was Anil Dharker who also wrote a piece defending Jayaji’s actions. A literary festival is not made for sound bytes; it’s for thoughtful exposition of ideas,” said Anil. “Those who take Jaya Bachchan’s remark out of context do a disservice to her, to our literary festival and to themselves.”
