Often referred to as the ‘quintessential girl-next-door’, Bollywood actor Amrita Rao slowly made her way into our hearts with her popular roles in ‘Ab Ke Baras’ and ‘Vivah’. Married to RJ Anmol, Amrita is now a proud mother to a boy ‘Veer’, born in November last year.
It’s been a couple of months that this gorgeous woman stepped into motherhood and clearly, she is enjoying every bit of it.
In a recent interview with Times Of India, the mommy shared how she still cannot fathom the phenomena. “I look at Veer every day and feel, ‘Is he for real?’ The first thing a baby teaches you is time management and discipline. Motherhood is like a mix of emotions. Each day there is wonderment, excitement, exhaustion, love, frustration, joy, entertainment and so many emotions in one jar.”
Talking about the change that motherhood has brought into her life and how she and her husband take care of the baby all by themselves, she divulged, “I never thought I would be such a hands-on mom. I could have an entourage around him if I wanted, but I don’t even have a nanny. Thanks to our profession’s flexibility, Anmol and I are doing everything ourselves, right from bathing the baby, massaging to nappy changing, and playing with him.”
“And, yes, in the mirror I still look like that girl who’s come back home from college (laughs!), just a bit fuller though. Anmol tells me from cute I’ve become hot after I’ve had the baby. I think every woman looks hotter after she has had a baby.”
2020 has been a testing year. However, we have seen a baby boom in the year too. Sharing how the year made a difference to the lives of the ‘2020 moms’, she said, “If someone told me I would be pregnant and at the same time, I would be learning to cook and do it for 21 days at a stretch, I’d have laughed it off. I never believed I could be good at cooking until last year.”
“All 2020 mommies would have some unique story to tell their kids. Also, 2020 pregnancy was the healthiest because it meant zero junk food and pure maa ke haath ka khana. The phones were away and I was mentally more relaxed with no regret of losing out on any work during the lockdown. Having your husband around throughout your pregnancy was a fringe benefit for some of us and am sure it was thoroughly enjoyed.”
“Shopping purely online for the baby was another super cool experience,” she exclaimed.
Amrita speaks of how she wants to explore roles like what Tabu did in ‘Maqbool’, ‘Cheeni Kum’ or ‘Astitva’. “I have always had a taste for her choice of cinema, even though those kinds of films were considered different then. Overall, cinema content has evolved and that gives us many more choices.”
Speaking of women and their careers in the industry today, she said, “Interestingly, many actresses in the 50s, 60s, and 70s were married, they became mothers and continued romancing on-screen. Nutan Ji and Sharmila Tagore Ji are the biggest examples. Sadly, it changed somewhere in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, but thanks to many actresses of my generation who set the right precedent by marrying in the sunshine of their careers, now things are far better.”
Talking about her journey and the opportunities denied because she didn’t have a Godfather in the industry, she opines, “I have done some unforgettable films that I believe will hold relevance for a very long time. Perhaps many newcomers today haven’t even seen the back-to-back success that I have seen from right from the start of my career.
“My popularity and acceptance were genuine and were not planned through PR and marketing strategies, yet, there were many deserving opportunities denied that were beyond my control because I don’t have a Godfather here. However, I cannot deny the fact that I have never had to ask directors for work. I’ve always been approached by the biggest of banners and I had the privilege of refusing offers because I was not comfortable with doing certain intimate scenes.”
“My journey has been easy, yet difficult because I had to carve my own path by trial and error. But the taste of being self-made is the sweetest,” she signs off.
Amrita rightly said that however big or small your journey is, the fact that you have carved it yourself makes a whole lot of difference. More power to you, Amrita.