JAYA Bachchan, 15 years after Silsila, is back in the glare of the arclights. Not in Bombay, but in Bolpur, Bengal. The actress who had the entire nation in thrall in the early '70s is playing the lead in an episode of the six-part mini series, Shatabdir Kanya (Daughters of the Century), being directed by veteran Bengali filmmaker Tapan Sinha.
A long-awaited 'comeback' by one of Hindi cinema's best-loved actresses? Not quite. "I never said I was going away," Jaya told a TV interviewer this week just before heading for Bolpur. An artiste, she suggested, should be free to choose what she wants to essay on the screen. And more important, when.
The role Sinha offered had too much meat to pass up: the central character in Sarat Chandra's Abhagir Swarga (Heaven for the Hapless), a tragic tale about a poverty-stricken woman in rural Bengal who dreams of happier days but in vain. Death is her only solace. Commissioned by Doordarshan and based on six different Bengali stories, including one by Tagore, the series is being shot on 35 mm. Jaya, now an active ABCL exec and chairperson of N'CYP, is no stranger to Bengali cinema. She made her debut in Satyajit Ray's Mahanagar (1963) and followed it up with a star turn in Dhanni Meye (What a Girl!), a runaway box-office success. So, the shift back from behind the scenes to the Bengali screen is no big deal for the actress who never let the inches she lacked hamper her enormous histrionic talent.
