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Tushar Joshi (DNA; October 19, 2015)
Your mom would have been 60 this year...
Yes. It’s been 29 years since my mom passed away; just two weeks after she gave birth to me. She would have been 60 on October 17. Besides being with her in heart, mind and spirit, my family and I try to spend as much time together remembering how magical a person she was. We talk about all the love and appreciation she had for everyone and all the love and appreciation she got back from all the people in her life. Her relationships with her filmmakers, colleagues, co-stars, producers and fans, was all organic, pure and beautiful. It was true and unconditional. I feel blessed that even 29 years after her passing, the world still wants to remember my mother and celebrate her life and achievements. So in her memory, this year, we released a book called Smita Patil: A Brief Incandescence. Mr Bachchan was kind enough to grace the occasion and release the book. Another special occasion was me speaking at the Mumbai University about my mother and how her being such an icon and legendary woman, has affected and moulded me into the person I am today.
Even though you barely spent any time together, you seem very connected to her.
I am connected to her. But unfortunately, the connect has never been through human touch or spending time together or being a family together. It was always through her films and photographs, stories from family, her friends and people she worked with. I feel I also have a huge connect with her as a performer and an actor. I like to study her style of performance and acting. In my opinion, she was a very simple actor but her performances were layered and had immense depth. That is also what I am looking for in myself as an actor and performer. But we connect on extraordinary love...cosmic love!
Do people tell you that you are like your mom?
People say I look like both my parents. Hey, I am not complaining! They were both very good-looking people when they were at the peaks of their career. I still feel they are very beautiful.
Is your relationship with your dad different now than it was five years ago?
I was raised by my mother’s parents, my father had another family to look after. I would see him, but not very often. I was kept away from the film industry, too. My grandmother did it to avoid all the drama, I suppose. Initially, there wasn’t a bond where I felt like I could go see him whenever I wanted, it wasn’t something I felt naturally about, it wasn’t organic. He wasn’t someone I could cry to earlier, as the years passed and I grew older and a little wiser I understood that he is the only biological parent I have left and I wanted to establish a connect. I wanted us to bond, I wanted us to love each other and that’s what we have now, love respect and admiration for each other.
You recently lost your grandmother. How are you coping?
My grandmother is and always will be my real mother. Smita is my reel mother! Just kidding! Smita is as real as on can get, but my grandmother Vidya is and always will be my number one. When I was a child I thought she would always be there, I thought she would never grow old, so yes it was a shock. But the whole family saw it coming, she got bed ridden and stopped walking and communicating. Though we were prepared for it, I still can’t believe she isn’t around. I miss her every single day. If I am half a decent and respectful man today it is only because of her. She will always be the driving force of my life.
Did you see it coming? And prepare yourself mentally?
Once she got bed ridden, we knew it was going to be only downhill from there. All we could do was to spend as much time with her as we could.
One thing that you will always remember her for?
Her being a disciplinarian.
What you will miss most about her?
She used to hate the way I dressed. My torn jeans with my boxers hanging loose. She always said now that you are making some money why don’t you buy clothes that are not torn? Brush your teeth thrice a day, shower twice, wash your hands before every meal, don’t drink water between meals, don’t smoke cigarettes, and drive the car slow. Last but not the least she said if you buy a bike I will never forgive you! That’s something that I am battling with till date... I love bikes!
She was the one constant in your life. How has your life changed after her?
I still believe she’s alive and still approach life like she’s living next door. I wake up every morning wanting to go meet her every evening after a day’s work trying to make something of myself, proud to tell her and make her proud just to see a smile on her face. Even my 92-year-old grandfather for that matter, I want to reach out to people through good cinema like my mother did and come home to my grandparents to tell them about how I want to be like my mother and make them proud the way she did. She will still remain constant just invisible but not inaudible, I will still speak to her through photographs like I have with my mother for my entire life. Sure I do feel the void and it does hurt and it always will. But my head is stuck on making her proud and that’s what I want to do.
She was your support system. Who do you see fulfilling that role in your life now?
I can fall back on everybody close to me in my family. My father, my aunts, my grandfather, Aarya, Juhi, their mother, but I want to be strong enough to be my own support system. I know its hard to even think of or easy to say, or maybe over ambitious even, but it’s the way I want to be and I am working on it.
What’s happening on the career front?
A film I worked on called Umrika directed by Prashant Nair also stars Life of Pi’s Suraj Sharma, we play brothers in the film. It won some rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival in January early this year and releases in India early next year. I am looking forward to what you guys think. It’s an art house film, my mothers favourite genre!
Clik here to view.
Tushar Joshi (DNA; October 19, 2015)
When your mother is Smita Patil, there is no running away from the world of showbiz and glamour. On Saturday, Prateik celebrated his mom’s 60th birthday by participating in a series of events in her memory, which included a book released by one of his mother’s costars — Amitabh Bachchan. Prateik Babbar lost his mom when he was too weeks old and was raised by his naani Vidyatai Patil who passed away earlier this year. Caught in an emotional mood, the actor talks about losing his ‘mom’ all over again. The fondest memories of his grandmom, and mending his rocky relationship with his father Raj Babbar. Read on...
Your mom would have been 60 this year...
Yes. It’s been 29 years since my mom passed away; just two weeks after she gave birth to me. She would have been 60 on October 17. Besides being with her in heart, mind and spirit, my family and I try to spend as much time together remembering how magical a person she was. We talk about all the love and appreciation she had for everyone and all the love and appreciation she got back from all the people in her life. Her relationships with her filmmakers, colleagues, co-stars, producers and fans, was all organic, pure and beautiful. It was true and unconditional. I feel blessed that even 29 years after her passing, the world still wants to remember my mother and celebrate her life and achievements. So in her memory, this year, we released a book called Smita Patil: A Brief Incandescence. Mr Bachchan was kind enough to grace the occasion and release the book. Another special occasion was me speaking at the Mumbai University about my mother and how her being such an icon and legendary woman, has affected and moulded me into the person I am today.
Even though you barely spent any time together, you seem very connected to her.
I am connected to her. But unfortunately, the connect has never been through human touch or spending time together or being a family together. It was always through her films and photographs, stories from family, her friends and people she worked with. I feel I also have a huge connect with her as a performer and an actor. I like to study her style of performance and acting. In my opinion, she was a very simple actor but her performances were layered and had immense depth. That is also what I am looking for in myself as an actor and performer. But we connect on extraordinary love...cosmic love!
Do people tell you that you are like your mom?
People say I look like both my parents. Hey, I am not complaining! They were both very good-looking people when they were at the peaks of their career. I still feel they are very beautiful.
Is your relationship with your dad different now than it was five years ago?
I was raised by my mother’s parents, my father had another family to look after. I would see him, but not very often. I was kept away from the film industry, too. My grandmother did it to avoid all the drama, I suppose. Initially, there wasn’t a bond where I felt like I could go see him whenever I wanted, it wasn’t something I felt naturally about, it wasn’t organic. He wasn’t someone I could cry to earlier, as the years passed and I grew older and a little wiser I understood that he is the only biological parent I have left and I wanted to establish a connect. I wanted us to bond, I wanted us to love each other and that’s what we have now, love respect and admiration for each other.
You recently lost your grandmother. How are you coping?
My grandmother is and always will be my real mother. Smita is my reel mother! Just kidding! Smita is as real as on can get, but my grandmother Vidya is and always will be my number one. When I was a child I thought she would always be there, I thought she would never grow old, so yes it was a shock. But the whole family saw it coming, she got bed ridden and stopped walking and communicating. Though we were prepared for it, I still can’t believe she isn’t around. I miss her every single day. If I am half a decent and respectful man today it is only because of her. She will always be the driving force of my life.
Did you see it coming? And prepare yourself mentally?
Once she got bed ridden, we knew it was going to be only downhill from there. All we could do was to spend as much time with her as we could.
One thing that you will always remember her for?
Her being a disciplinarian.
What you will miss most about her?
She used to hate the way I dressed. My torn jeans with my boxers hanging loose. She always said now that you are making some money why don’t you buy clothes that are not torn? Brush your teeth thrice a day, shower twice, wash your hands before every meal, don’t drink water between meals, don’t smoke cigarettes, and drive the car slow. Last but not the least she said if you buy a bike I will never forgive you! That’s something that I am battling with till date... I love bikes!
She was the one constant in your life. How has your life changed after her?
I still believe she’s alive and still approach life like she’s living next door. I wake up every morning wanting to go meet her every evening after a day’s work trying to make something of myself, proud to tell her and make her proud just to see a smile on her face. Even my 92-year-old grandfather for that matter, I want to reach out to people through good cinema like my mother did and come home to my grandparents to tell them about how I want to be like my mother and make them proud the way she did. She will still remain constant just invisible but not inaudible, I will still speak to her through photographs like I have with my mother for my entire life. Sure I do feel the void and it does hurt and it always will. But my head is stuck on making her proud and that’s what I want to do.
She was your support system. Who do you see fulfilling that role in your life now?
I can fall back on everybody close to me in my family. My father, my aunts, my grandfather, Aarya, Juhi, their mother, but I want to be strong enough to be my own support system. I know its hard to even think of or easy to say, or maybe over ambitious even, but it’s the way I want to be and I am working on it.
What’s happening on the career front?
A film I worked on called Umrika directed by Prashant Nair also stars Life of Pi’s Suraj Sharma, we play brothers in the film. It won some rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival in January early this year and releases in India early next year. I am looking forward to what you guys think. It’s an art house film, my mothers favourite genre!