Bollywood's most famous mother-daughter duos

It's a poignant moment. Janhvi Kapoor makes her debut with Dhadak, that released this weekend. Tragically, her mother, the late Sridevi, will not be by her side, to watch Janhvi carry her legacy forward. The 21-year-old has her father Boney Kapoor, and the entire Kapoor family - uncle Anil Kapoor, cousin Sonam, sister Khushi and half-brother Arjun - rallying around her. Plus, she has been groomed and backed by Karan Johar, who has justly acquired the reputation of strategising star careers (under his paternal-like guardianship, in a span of eight years, Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Sidharth Malhotra have evolved from Student of the Year to becoming household names).
That Sridevi will not be there to bask in the debut of Janhvi is quite reminiscent of the emotional trauma faced by Sanjay Dutt. His mother, Nargis Dutt, passed away just three days before his first film Rocky released in 1981.
On a different note, the tradition of the star mother-daughter connect in Bollywood has persisted since time immemorial. Here's citing one of the earliest instances. The classically beautiful Naseem Banu, a rage from the 1930s to the mid-1950s - especially because of her incarnation of the Mughal empress Noorjehan in Pukar (1939) - encouraged her daughter, Saira, to make a whopper debut opposite Shammi Kapoor in Junglee (1961). The breezy entertainer was tailor-made for the daughter - who instantaneously came to be anointed 'the beauty queen', a honorific associated with her mother.
Naseem Banu realised that her daughter, who had returned from a finishing school in Switzerland, was ideal for films shot in colour. Not surprisingly, then, Saira Banu fetched up in only a fistful of black-and-white movies including Shaadi (1962), Bluff Master (1963) and Aao Pyaar Karen (1964). Producers who couldn't afford the colour medium were kept at bay.
Although she could have proved to be a 'helicopter mom', Naseem wouldn't shadow her daughter at the studios. However, when it came to marriage, Dilip Kumar was selected as the only possible match for Saira, despite their age difference of 22 years. Mamma knew best. The marriage - never mind a shortlived liaison with Asma - has withstood the test of time, lasting 51 years.
An age-old belief goes that women who longed, in vain, for acting careers frequently realised their ambitions through their daughters. Constricted by conventions and a lack of opportunities, scores of mothers have followed this route, with varying degrees of success over the decades.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are the firmly established star mothers, who, after near-retirement, have sought to ensure that their daughters follow their métier. If that involves giving up a normal life for a round-the-clock regimen at the studios, so be it. Fame, glamour and wide recognition are worth the slog and, on occasion, heartbreak.
Take the case of Mala Sinha, whose daughter Pratibha is best remembered for her cameo in Raja Hindustani (1996). As a heroine, she couldn't quite make the cut. To her mother's consternation, rumours abounded about her relationship with the already-married music composer Nadeem Saifi. After intervention from a politician, whose diktat couldn't be ignored, Pratibha vanished from the scene. At the age of 49 today, she has gone completely off the radar.
Babita, who made her bow in Raaz opposite Rajesh Khanna in 1969 and went on to star in scores of romedies, called it a day after marrying Randhir Kapoor. Consequent to their separation, Babita wasn't the sort to be buckled down. Karisma and Kareena Kapoor became the first young women from the RK clan to impact the movies - and how. That couldn't have been easy.
Babita handled her daughters' film projects, money management and deflected link-ups with actors. Their estimable acting careers wouldn't have been the same without their mom, who has, till date, refused to discuss, on record, how she battled against the showbiz odds. Right from the outset, when producer Pramod Chakravorty had lodged a case against Karisma (although she was in hospital) for playing truant from the sets of Deedar (1992), she has essayed the part of the protector. Not with my daughters has been her credo.
The daughters of Dimple Kapadia and Rajesh Khanna - Twinkle and Rinke Khanna - gravitated towards acting. Twinkle teamed up with practically every top-of-the-line star - from Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan to Ajay Devgn. As it happened, Twinkle was disenchanted to an extent with the grind of camera-lights-action. She displayed a flair for interior decoration, and, soon after her marriage, found her niche as a columnist and an author, often lacing her writing with tongue-in-cheek humour. Rinke, known for her impeccable manners and easygoing outlook, after marriage to a businessman has opted to stay away, so to speak, from the madding crowd.
Over to Tanuja and Kajol. Separated from her husband, producer Shomu Mukherjee, the ever-spirted Tanuja believed in the policy of laissez-faire, just like her mother, the legendary actress Shobhna Samarth. Kajol and her younger sister Tanishaa weren't coerced into acting in any which way. Kajol was natural born to the profession. From her very first film, Bekhudi (1996), it was evident that she was here to stay. Her marriage to Ajay Devgn was of her own volition, so were her film choices. Regrettably, luck by chance didn't favour Tanishaa. Possessed of a cheerful outlook, Tanishaa has, over the years, made forays into theatre and television reality shows.
To come back to Janhvi, there were sporadic reports that Sridevi wasn't exactly pleased with her boyfriends Shikhar Pahariya and Akshat Rajan whose photos went viral on Instagram. Janhvi was advised to focus on her career.
Similarly, Amrita Singh has been monitoring the professional and personal lives of her daughter, Sara, with Saif Ali Khan. There were some initial glitches about which project should be Sara's first showcase. After much ado, she has been paired opposite Sushant Singh Rajput in the Abhishek Kapoor-directed Kedarnath, and opposite Ranveer Singh in Rohit Shetty's Simba.
No two or three ways about it. The debuts of Janhvi and Sara will be minutely scanned. And something tells me that their primary motive will be to do their mothers proud.
wknd@khaleejtimes.com