Itishree Misra (BOMBAY TIMES; May 20, 2018)

Sharmila Tagore was at her candid best, at a recent event in Lucknow. Although the event was titled Motherhood and work-life balance, the Chupke Chupke, Amar Prem, Mausam and Aradhana actress spoke on a variety of subjects, including the positive changes in Bollywood since when she was an active part of the industry, her marriage to Tiger Pataudi and her grandson Taimur.

PEOPLE SHOULD LAY OFF TAIMUR
The doting and protective grandmother in Sharmila came to the fore when one among the audience gushed about her grandson, one-and-a-half-year old Taimur Ali Khan, and how everyone found him to be one of the cutest kids. Flashing her dimpled smile, Sharmila said, “He’s very sweet. He’s talking now, but not in sentences, yet. He does say ‘Abba’ and ‘Amma’ sometimes, but not that clearly. It’s more of mumbling right now. Taimur is like any other child playing his usual things. He likes his car and his toys and he likes books.”

But the veteran actress also made it clear, in the same breath, how she disapproved of the attention showered over the kid by people and on social media. “I don’t approve of this social media attention and what they (people) are doing to Taimur. People are really stalking him! They are in front of his school, the play school that he goes too, following him when he’s going with his parents and it’s not really a good thing. Because, at the moment he’s young, but he’s still understanding cameras and stuff. So one can’t really not go out, to avoid this attention. There should be some kind of request to the people to lay off Taimur. Or maybe another baby will arrive someday and they will get bored of this one,” she said.

She admits that people advised her not to marry at the peak of her career. “People said that you’re at the peak of your career and marriage may affect it. But I feel there is a timing in everybody’s life. Yes, I had to give up a lot of films. But I didn’t fall off the ladder, so to speak because Aradhana was released after I was married and it became a runaway hit. Amar Prem, Mausam, all these films released after I got married and had Saif,” she said.

About her much-talked about romance and marriage to former Indian skipper Tiger Pataudi, Sharmila said, “Ours was a love marriage. We dated for a few years and it didn’t change our opinion of each other. Nobody gave us beyond one or two years but we carried on for much longer than expected by others,” she said with a smile.

About how the industry has changed over the years, Sharmila said, “The sets are now more comfortable. In our times, the toilets on the sets used to be terrible. Now there have been many improvements, actors have huge vans with separate washrooms. The audience’s acceptance of actors has also increased. Like Saif played a villain in Omkara and he was a hero in Love Aaj Kal. So, he was accepted in both roles. Even Priyanka Chopra played a vamp in one of the movies and people still love her as a heroine in others. But in our time, we couldn’t do that.”