Nirupa Roy: The ideal mother and ‘goddess’ of Hindi films; Javed Akhtar pays tribute  

More popular as Amitabh Bachchan’s doting and sacrificing on-screen mother, Nirupa Roy’s contribution to Hindi cinema is immense. She worked in more than 200 films. First, she became famous as ‘goddess’ and for portraying mythological characters and then she gave an entire new meaning to the word ‘maa’ (mother) in Hindi cinema. The Hindi film audience for generations now is well-familiar with the dialogue ‘Mere paas Maa hai!’ (Deewar)

Though she first played the role of a mother in Dev Anand-starrer "Munimji", some of her most memorable portrayals were those with Amitabh Bachchan as her on-screen son. She played his mother in several films like Deewar, Amar Akbar Anthony and Khoon Pasina.

If the credit for portraying a strong willed mother who sacrifices her son for the greater good goes to Nargis in Mother India, It is Nirupa Roy who successfully projected the image of a middle class all loving and self-sacrificing mother in the Hindi belt. Nobody is so strongly etched in a society’s memory as an ideal mother than Nirupa Roy.

On the 87th birth anniversary of late legendary actress Nirupa Roy on Friday, veteran lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar said she is the most iconic on-screen mother that Bollywood has seen.

In the forthcoming episode of Zee Bollywood's "Classic Legends Season 5", Akhtar paid tribute to the actress and said: "Be it Leela Chitnis, Durga Khote, Achala Sachdev, there are many actresses in the industry who started their career as the young heroines and later specialised in mother's roles.

"But it was Nirupa Roy who captured million hearts with her on-screen roles of mother. She is an iconic mother of Bollywood."

While praising the late actress, Akhtar added: "When she portrayed the character of Goddess on screen, she looked like a mother and when she used to become mother in films, she always turned out looking like a Goddess."

After entertaining the audience for over five decades, Roy died in 2004.

With inputs from IANS