In an exclusive conversation with Zoom, Neena Gupta, winner of the National Award for Uunchai talked about her life, career, decisions and more. Sooraj Barjatya directorial film also stars Amitabh Bachchan, Boman Irani, Anupam Kher, and Parineeti Chopra.
In an exclusive conversation with Zoom, Neena talked about her life, career, decisions and more.
How does the National Award make you feel?
I am very very happy. I was very surprised, happily surprised and I am flying high in the clouds saying thank you to God and I am grateful to everyone, and I am patting myself on my back saying, ‘Baby, keep on working hard, you will get appreciation.’
Which according to you are the turning points of your career?
Funnily, the first project, if you can call it a project of mine, which made me a little famous was an ad for Hawkins Pressure Cooker. After that, I think I struggled, struggled, struggled for a long, long time, many, many years and then my serial SAANS happened, which was a game-changing thing for me. And after that, Badhai Ho happened. I think these are the three things that changed my career path, and career growth.
What is your advice to the working girls today?
They don’t need my advice. I’m very proud of the girls today who are balancing their family life and their careers and are successful in both, which is a very amazing thing, a very difficult task to do. Earlier, if the woman heroine got married, she never got work. Now the girls are working, actresses are working. Even after having kids, they work hard on their bodies. They lose weight and they are there. They look after their kids, their in-laws, their families, their parents and still work. So that is a very, very big thing that has happened. It has happened with very few people, but it’s a very major beginning of our times.
Do you feel the institution of marriage is obsolete? Are live-in relationships the solution?
I don’t know because I don’t see any other alternative to the institution of marriage. About live-in relationships, I actually do not know. I have not understood whether it is good or bad for people. The point is that our patience has grown very low because we live in a very complicated world, a very competitive world. And as women are getting more and more educated, getting more and more financially independent, they won’t take any nonsense from anybody. Marriage, I think, is a lot of compromise, and a lot of adjustment to each other, which is becoming more and more difficult every day. So actually, I’m very confused as to what should happen. Should one get married or live in or stay single or adjust to have a longer marriage where they have a companion and children in their old age I feel family is the most important thing in this world. Your work will come and go, your fame will come and go. You can be very successful and famous, but eventually, it’s the family you need as your strength.
Loneliness is the new pandemic?
I think a very important reason for declining mental health, and depression is because one is lonely. So that problem will, I think, mount slowly and people will have to learn how to cope with it and think as to what is important for them. And there is no right or wrong way, there is no easy way. You are single and lonely, that’s a problem. You are married, a bad marriage, that’s a problem. You are divorced, that’s a problem. Problems are everywhere. So it is up to you what is your priority. I have learned because I have been alone for almost more than half of my life and it is very difficult.