"Earlier people didn't want girls... Today women are achieving more than men... My daughter is very mischievous but she is also responsible."
Fresh as a daisy she looks even more ravishing without make up and her flawless skin glows in the morning light. She's just out of bed and there's a tinge of envy when you see the under-eye bags and the morning grumpy-frumpiness conspicuous by its absence.
But this is not the only reason why
Shweta Tiwari features on the COVER STORY of GR8! Shweta represents those scores of women not only in the Tellyland but the world over who walk the tight rope balancing between two starkly diverse worlds – home and profession. She desires both and wants the best of both.
This is the story of a woman who fell in love with Raja and married him at a young age of 19. One year later, at 20, she became a mother. And six months later she was saddled with another responsibility – she was offered the plum role of Prerna for Kasautii Zindagi Kay.
Her life in those two years was suddenly packed with action – new marriage, newly-born baby and she was hitching on to an extremely demanding career. It's a little over five years and she has shouldered all her responsibilities with grit and lan.
Today Shweta's Beti Palak is 5 years old. Shweta works for about 12 hours a day. She begins her day at 7 am and winds up at 2 am, sleeps for just about 5 hours and yet manages to look fresh and happy at the end of it all.
It's a bright Sunday morning. Shweta is sleeping longer than usual but wakes up when GR8! journos arrive at her door. She just splashes some water on her face and bingo, she's ready for a chat!
The chat is just warming up when a small head pops out of the door and a curious pair of eyes scans us. Slowly a small body comes through the door and climbs onto Shweta's lap. She is Palak, Shweta's daughter, or Lavu as Shweta fondly calls her.
Both are still comfortably lounging around in their night suits.
The more we chat with Shweta, the more restless Palak gets.
"She loves attention. When there are people in the room, you need to focus on her otherwise she starts creating a noise," Shweta whispers.
"I always wanted a daughter. I was so happy when she was born. We had thought of a name for our baby even before she was born."
While Palak finds her toys to occupy herself with, Shweta tells us how Palak is the apple of her eye and is pampered to the hilt. "She needn't ask for anything. I get her everything. I love dressing her up. What does one do with a son? You can't even dress him up. With a daughter you can buy so much for her. She loves Barbies. Every time she goes to the store she has to buy one," smiles Shweta.
A mother forever in the limelight, following a hectic schedule does Palak understand her profession? How does she cope with her frequent absences? "She has grown up with my profession. When I started Kasautii... she was 6 months old. So she has grown up seeing me work on television. She knows her mum goes to work. She knows her mother's pictures appear everywhere. She knows that I'm on television. Whenever I go out with her, I cover my face because people chase me everywhere. So she tries to cover my face and starts telling people that this is not Prerna. Also I don't think my daughter will get affected by this line. She will become what she wants to become. I can't stop her. If she wants to be an actress she can..."
But the little guardian angel can turn into a devil and demand her share of attention. "But she also demands my time. She demands that when she goes to school I should be around and when she goes to sleep at night, I should be around. So I plan my shoots according to her.
"I wake up at 7am, wake her up at about 7:30 am, get her ready, make her breakfast, chase her to make her eat it and then go drop her to school by 8:30am. Then I get back home, take a bath, get ready and go to work. I work from 10 am to 10 pm. By 10:30 pm I get home, and before anything else, I get into bed with my daughter and put her to sleep. Then when she falls asleep I get up and remove my makeup, take a shower, have dinner and then go to sleep. I have to tell her bedtime stories which she has heard a million times but she wants to hear them again. By the time I finish all this it's 2 am. That's when I sleep..."
That's truly multi-tasking but Shweta makes it sound so effortless considering she works for the Industry's toughest task-master. "It might look difficult, but when I do it I don't feel tired. I enjoy what I'm doing. So it's not difficult or tiring," she says matter-of-fact.
But it hasn't really been as easy as she makes it appear. Personally she has to fight many battles of the heart. For a long time, she had to keep her daughter away with her in-laws in Meerut.
Shweta recollects those days, "I was in Meerut when she was born. For about three years my daughter was in Meerut with my in-laws. My mother (who is in Mumbai) already had a lot of responsibilities. My father wasn't keeping good health so her time was taken up by him. My younger brother was in college, so she had his responsibility as well. How and where could she manage a baby? In Meerut they had a big house...
"I was only 20 when I had her. I didn't understand anything at that point. I didn't know anything about pregnancy or about having a baby. I didn't see her growing up... It happened so fast...
"When she was in Meerut I used to go for one day and come back. She would cling onto me the whole day. Then when she would sleep at night, I would quietly leave. When she came back here, it took her a year to understand that I'm not going to leave her. Earlier she was very possessive of me. Today's it's better."
Life has not been a cake walk for her. Leaving a newborn was heartbreaking and getting leave from work was next to impossible. "She would fall sick there... I would howl and cry and beg to be released for 2 days but I wouldn't get an off. There were no episodes in the bank. I was new at that time, so I didn't know how to handle it. I would to cry all day."
One might wonder why she couldn't have resorted to live-in maids or day care centres. What is it that compelled her to stay away from her newborn? What price she had to pay for wanting to pursue her dream career and a dream home? "I left her there because we had no choice. We used to stay here on rent, we had no domestic help. We were working all round the clock. It would've been very difficult for us otherwise. I couldn't even get her to the shooting; there were 6-8 people cramped up in a small make up room. Where would I have kept her? When I had to feed her, I would call up my husband and ask him to get her to the sets, and then I would quickly feed her in between my shots," Shweta says in one breath.
So like all women suffer the guilt pangs Shweta went through hers. To assuage her guilt pangs she resorted to the one option – she started pampering Palak and giving in to all her demands. "So she's become stubborn. She'll grow up and understand…" shrugs Shweta, "I hope!!"
On any given holiday, Shweta tries to make up for all the time that she otherwise misses with her daughter because of work. "I try to spend as much time as possible with her. We go shopping or take her to wherever she wants to go to - to the mall or go swimming or just sit at home and make doll house.
"Now because she is growing up, I've decided to take her with me for all the shows that I go to. I'm going out for a month to the US soon, so I'll be taking her along. She loves beaches but I can't take her because of the crowd. But there I'll definitely take her to a beach," Shweta reveals.
A smart way to be close to your growing beti is to indulge the same activities as her. If she is sold over programmes on the Disney Channel so be it! So the Mother and the daughter are forever glued to the Disney channel. "That channel is running in my house all the time. Even my husband and I watch only that channel now," giggles Shweta.
She will go to any length to entertain her little one. As she did when she took a short break to visit Jaipur. For an uninterrupted exclusive time with Palak, Shweta even put a purda between herself and the prying eyes, literally. On a recent trip to Jaipur she wore a burka to make sure that her daughter had a good time...
Clearly, Shweta adores her baby girl and can't stop talking about her. Would it have been the same if she had a baby boy? Does she wish she had a son or ever faced a prejudice because she delivered a baby girl instead? "When I was in Meerut, there were people who thought that we should have a boy. But thankfully no one in my family had a problem. But some relatives said that they wished it was a boy even after she was born. But that feeling lasted just for about 2 hours. Then when they saw her, they wanted to play with her.
"Earlier people didn't want girls because of dowry problems. But today people are more aware. Today women are achieving more than the men. Girls are always much better than boys. My daughter is very mischievous but she is also responsible."
While Shweta's family has been persuading her to have another baby she is wriggling out of it – "My family definitely wants that I should have another baby, but I convinced them that I'm working so hard... when do I give time to another baby? I want time with my second child..." Shweta Tiwari's schedule is planned right down to the minutes.
Just as she says this, her daughter rushes out with one of Shweta's purses in hand. Shweta chases her and looks back and quips, "All my designer purses are gone. She takes them and puts her Barbie clothes in them. What to do?"
The cat and mouse game continues and suddenly the mother and the daughter vanish into a world of their own.
Web Series
Kabhi Neem Neem Kabhi Shahad Shahad
