Jaya Prada isn’t dressed in her trademark Kanjeevaram but a casual jeans and top. She starts off the conversation by addressing me as ‘Sir’ and offering tea. She sits on a plastic chair, while making sure I’m comfy on the sofa. Once she starts talking, you feel like you’re chatting with an old friend and not someone who’s been one of the top commercial actresses of her era. She shrugs off any sign of discomfort and says she’s used to plastic chairs. “This is what we used to sit on and wait for the hero,” she smiles. “We didn’t have fancy vanity vans then. A white plastic chair under an umbrella, with a large fan for company. I used to read a lot. In fact, I picked up my reading habit because there was nothing else to do on the set.” She reminisces about bathing at the airport bathroom and touching up her make-up during flights. “I once bathed in the train as we had to shoot as soon as we reached. The director didn’t want to lose the first light. I was working round the clock and learned to do my own make-up. We dashed from one location to the other, flitted in an out of characters – life passed in a blur. Today, when I hear of girls not cooperating because there’s no vanity van, I can only shake my head.” The man who made her wait the most was Rajesh Khanna, with whom she did two films, Maqsad and Dil-e-Nadaan. “He was the superstar. Everyone was in awe of him. They had great respect for him down South. I used to sit with make-up from morning and he used to turn up only after 2 pm. Work would start by five. He looked fresh, while I was drained by then. I’d request the director to take my close-ups separately.” She says she learned a lot from Kakaji despite it all. “We used to be called to the studio just to observe him. This was before I joined Hindi films. There was a certain aura about him, a certain confidence that translated magnificently on screen. He probably shot just one scene in a day but that scene stayed with you.I subconsciously picked up things from him.” Another superstar from whom she learnt much was Amitabh Bachchan. Her first film with him was Sharaabi (1984). She remembers feeling jittery on the first day of the shoot. “We were shooting Mujhe naulakha manga de re. I had butterflies in the stomach. But Bachchan saab has a way of reading the situation and calming his co-stars. He realised something was amiss and during breaks, chatted with me and broke the ice. There used to be a hush on the set while doing her own make-up performed. Once, he was so good that Prakashji (Mehra) forgot to say cut. One day, he hurt himself on the set; Sharaabi was going to be his first release after Coolie (1983), on the sets of which the infamous accident had occured, so everyone was apprehensive. But he carried on regardless. I’ve never seen such dedication in a star.”
Right from the start of her career, Jaya was paired with actors at least 20 years her senior. She was just 17 when she was paired with the 54-year-old NTR in the Telugu film Adavi Ramudu (1977). Yet the film was a super hit and the pair went onto give many more hits. Her Kannada film Sanaadi Appanna, released the same year was oppostite Kannada icon Rajkumar, then 49. “Because of the age difference, I was treated like a kid by my seniors. I didn’t know what love was but was saying all those lines about commitment and everlasting passion to superstars who I was in awe of, whom I had grown up watching. It was like a game of sorts. I was made to wear three petticoats and was padded up in appropriate places in order to look more than my age. So even a normal film became a costume drama for me,” she laughs. At 14, when most girls are finishing school and starting college, the danseuse got selected because of a stage recital to perform a song in Bhoomi Kosam (1974) and life was never the same again for her. “I was shy in school. I used to walk to and fro from home to school with my head bowed down, never looking at anybody. I suddenly became a celebrity in the eyes of my classmates after Bhoomi Kosam. I became even more isolated after that. I can’t believe I was ever that girl because later apart from being an actor,I also turned politician and never hesitated to address thousands at rallies.” Coming back to her career, Jaya became known for her pristine beauty and dancing skills, landing plum roles in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi cinema as well. Every Bjorn Borg needs his John McEnroe and Jaya Prada found one in Sridevi, the other rising South star everyone was going ga ga about. They remained bitter rivals despite working in several films together. One wonders how those films got made. “But that was our professionalism at its peak and also the respect we had for our directors. We knew we had to deliver. There was no question of not doing your job.” A story goes that Jeetendra, who was friendly with both, once locked them up in a room and told them to sort out their differences. The actor laughs and admits the story is true. “But his plan failed because when Jeetuji unlocked the room after two hours, he found us sitting in two different corners, facing the wall!”
She admits that Sridevi brought out the best in her. “During Maqsad, we had this dance duet for which we danced for seven hours each day for 10 days. It was pure madness but neither of us was willing to relent. We couldn’t even walk and had to be carried to our cars at the end of the shift. But that dance is still remembered today.” She says she has no bitterness towards Sridevi now. “We aren’t exactly friends but are cordial towards each other. She has moved on and so have I. But I bet people will still pay good money to see us in a film together. I’d love to match wits with her on screen once more.” Her roles required her to adopt weird costumes and dance amidst, pots and pans, atop huge drums. Wasn’t she ever amused by the absurdity of it all? “It all worked na?” she counter questions. “The masses lapped it up, however absurd it may seem now. It was drilled into us to never question the director’s vision. Then, we were rushing from one shoot to the other. There was no time to introspect. I don’t regret those dances because it was hard work. It isn’t easy to dance atop a drum, believe me.”
She took to playing the prototyped heroine in most films but there were exceptions, especially in the South films like Sagara Sangamam, which won her accolades. “There is a song in the film where Kamal Haasan is dancing on top of a well. It was an actual well and not a prop. My heart was in my mouth every time he mounted the well’s wall. That’s why my reaction shots in the song were so good,” she laughs. “It was a unique film. We aged through the film but our love remained strong. I had to convey different emotions just through my eyes as I played a married woman in love with this talented dancer. Kamal was fabulous as usual and our dance sequence together is one of the hardest I’ve done.” She reveals that there was a proposal to remake the film in Hindi, with Govinda in Kamal’s role. “Govinda saw the original and wisely decided to stay away from the project. He said he could never replicate Kamal’s work.” K Vishwanath, who directed Sagara Sangamam, gave her Sanjog (1985) too, another much-talked about film that saw her playing a woman twice her age. “Everyone warned me against doing the film, saying it would end my Hindi career. But Vishwanathji had me playing mother to a grown up daughter in Sagar... too. I had complete faith in him, which was justified when the film got rave reviews.”
She turned politician at the behest of her idol NTR, who later served as Andhra CM. “He was an early riser. He used to get up around 3:30 am and would start his meetings by 5 am. One day he asked me to come home to discuss something important. He said he wanted me to join his party TDP. I immediately said yes. At first, I supported him from the flanks but later got actively involved with the party. Later, we had our differences, I had to change sides but we remained in touch on a personal level. My love and affection for him never diminished.” She left the TDP to join the Samajwadi Party and contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2004 from Rampur, UP and won by a record margin. “I don’t know why they made me contest from North,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting it but like everything else in life, I took it as a challenge. I worked hard to connect with the people of my constituency. It wasn’t a cakewalk just because I was a star." She lost the 2014 elections, contesting from Bijnaur, a new playground for her. “It was too early to build a rapport. People in Rampur me. I’ve worked tirelessly for them. But such camaraderie, such affection cannot be won overnight.” For now, the focus is on acting. She’s doing a film directed by Anil Sharma’s brother, where she’s playing a queen. Given a choice, she’d love to do a project like the Malayalam film Pranayam, a bold, middle aged romance where she was paired with Mohanlal. “Why are love stories slotted around people in their 20s?” she questions. “Why can’t we have more Baghbans?I lost out on that but got my chance in the Kannada version, starring Vishnu Vardhan, which was a big hit.”