On the latest episode of Navya Naveli Nanda's podcast What The Hell Navya, Jaya Bachchan said that Amitabh Bachchan had told her, ahead of their wedding, that he didn't "want a wife who will be (working) 9-5". The veteran actor also shared why she and Big B had to prepone their wedding.
Answering Navya's question as to how Amitabh proposed to her Jaya said, "I was shooting in Calcutta and we had decided that we will go for a holiday if one movie that we had done is a hit. Zanjeer. The movie was a hit. I was shooting for a movie in Calcutta and nana (grandpa) called and said, 'There's a problem'. We had decided we will get married in October because by then my work would have reduced. Amitabh had said, 'I definitely don't want a wife who will be 9-5. Please work, you must work but not every day. You choose your projects, work with the right people'."
She added, "I said okay. He then called me and said, 'My parents are saying you can't go for a holiday with Jaya, if you want to go for a holiday with her, you marry her'. He said, 'What do you think?' I said, 'Well we were planning to get married in October so it's okay we will do it in June. Khatam".
Jaya further said that when Amitabh called her father to speak about the marriage he wasn't very happy. "My father wasn't very happy, he never wanted me to get married. We were three sisters. He said, ‘I have not brought you into this world to just educate yourself, get married and settle down and have children. I want you all to do something in life’. That was my father. And then he spoke to my father who said, 'That's fine. We don't want a big wedding. My parents are alive, I want them to attend. Jaya said it was a 'quiet wedding' at her godmother's house in Mumbai.
Jaya and Amitabh Bachchan tied the knot in 1973.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)