Writer Aparajita Krishna weaves memory, cinema, politics, motherhood and moral courage into interlinked recalls, moving from Shyam Benegal’s Yatra to Badhaai Ho, and lived histories that honour choice, care, dignity, and radical acceptance today together.

Blending cinema history, lived memory, feminist reflection, and political conscience, Aparajita Krishna’s evocative essay traces pregnancy across fiction and life—from Shyam Benegal’s Yatra and Neena Gupta’s real-life motherhood to Badhaai Ho and a deeply personal account of extraordinary fatherhood—revealing how care, choice, and acceptance redefine family, love, and courage across generations.

This article is A Bouquet of Pregnant Recalls! It contains anecdotes, accounts of assorted fragrance, experiences, but tied together by a common umbilical cord. Herein are Four recalls: Tracking my nostalgia of the Shyam Benegal directed TV serial ‘Yatra!’ and of a particular story therein. During the train-ride a pregnant woman, played by actor Neena Gupta, gives birth on the train; Neena Gupta’s most admirable real-life yatra of unmarried-single-parent-motherhood of the very talented Masaba Gupta; ‘Badhaai Ho’ (2018) film and its uniquely pregnant narrative of a middle-aged mother-woman’s (played by Neena Gupta) pregnancy and the family reaction; A most poignant real-life account of a pregnancy and birth which stays deep in my heart’s memory too—An Extraordinary Fatherhood.

YATRA (TV Serial)

Back in 1986, tele-serial ‘Yatra’, directed by Shyam Benegal, had got telecast on Doordarshan (DD National). This pioneering work was an Indian train-travel-based 14-episode TV series, filmed on the longest running Indian railway train journey across the length and breadth of India. Kanyakumari to Jammu Tawi and Jaisalmer to Assam. It was filmed on the Himsagar Express, the longest running train of the Indian Railways, and the Tripura Express. It had an ensemble cast of passenger-actors headed by Om Puri and included actors Uttara Baokar, Rajendra Gupta, Mohan Gokhale, Neena Gupta, Ravi Kemmu, K K Raina, Ila Arun, Harish Patel, Himani Shivpuri, Urmi Juvekar, Ravi Jhankal, Nikhil Kapoor, Sushma Prakash, Salim Arif and many others. It was directed by Shyam Benegal. Among the chief credits: the script was written by Shama Zaidi and Sunil Shanbag; camera-work was by Jehangir Chowdhury; sound: S.W. Deshpande; editing: Bhanudas Divkar; music was composed by Vanraj Bhatia.

Yours truly, me, was also a part of this journey as an actor and character. My character was of a lady doctor, Dr Parveen, on the train, who at that point in time is traveling with her husband played by actor K K Raina. This Muslim couple are in a marital discord phase. Husband is not keen that wife continues with her busy doctor life. In the train a heavily pregnant female-passenger, Neesha, played by actor Neena Gupta, suddenly develops labour-pain on the train (ep:7). All the fellow travellers rise to the occasion and my character of the lady-doctor along with her estranged husband spearheads to safely deliver the baby. This emergency crisis somehow brings the estranged travelling couple closer. I now smile at that recall. I also remember that while filming the child-delivery on-board, when the camera was on me overseeing Neena Gupta’s character writhing in pain and her legs apart, my eyes may have not sufficiently gazed at the vagina portion, and Shyam Babu sternly asking me to look directly there.

Om Puri played an army man, Gopalan Nair. He would recall to me in 2006—“It was an amazing experience which lasted for fifty-two continuous days on a train. We had a train booked for the unit which chugged all the way from Jammu to Kanyakumari, Assam to Rajasthan, all over India. We lived with the locals, ate their food and enjoyed the natural beauty.”

Sunil Shanbag would years later in 2021 recall, “My most intense interaction with Shyam Babu was in television, first with the series Yatra and then later with Bharat Ek Khoj, a truly mammoth project. In Yatra the idea was to follow two fictional journeys by a set of colourful characters (including a theatre group) who travel by train along two distinct routes – Kanyakumari to Jammu Tawi and Jaisalmer to Assam, basically the length and breadth of the country. There was the research and recce phase where we travelled the routes and gathered material for the script. Shama Zaidi and I wrote the 14-episode series, and I assisted Shyam Babu during the shoot and later in the editing. For the shoot itself we had our own train which served as a shooting space, and also accommodation for the cast and crew. It was a little world on wheels with a kitchen, a dining car, a generator car for power for the shoot, a laundry, a small medical unit, and several coaches for us to stay in. I think we stayed 50 days on the train during the shoot, and basically saw the entire country! It was an unforgettable experience.”

Pia Benegal would inform on 18.12.2025, “When Yatra was being filmed, I was in my last year B.A. I did not work on Yatra in any capacity. Just came on board as a visitor and enjoyed the trip on the train. And watched the shooting during the day and the fun all the actors were having in the evening. I remember the different coaches for cooking of food, for washing of clothes and drying. One coach had all the raw materials and food was cooked for the unit. One had all the lights, trolley tracks, cables, different equipment. One coach may have been for costumes and make-up. Two coaches were used for shooting on-board. Two coaches were for the actors and the crew to stay in. One coach for the director.”

NEENA GUPTA & REAL-LIFE PREGNANCY

Neena Gupta’s most admirable real-life yatra of unmarried-single-parent-motherhood of the very talented daughter Masaba Gupta (Indian Fashion Designer, Actress, Businesswoman) has emerged as a celebrity-admiration example over the years. This 36-year-old (born 1989) has fascinated me for long. I am no fashionista, have always to web-check how to spell ‘haute-couture’ (😊), but Masaba’s design-aesthetics in fashionwear, cosmetic-labels etc. are so original, experimental and beautifully blended, out of the box and in the box, that they arrest you. She and her designs have been endorsed and worn by many of the Indian celebrities. I most certainly cannot afford her clothes, but my eyes behold them when I see them in photographs/videos. Her designer label Masaba has outlets and every time I pass by the Juhu shop, which I have visited, I automatically peep out of my vehicle to glance at the shop. In 2023 she ventured into the luxury gourmet sector by investing in food square. Great creativity and business acumen. ‘Masaba Masaba’, a biographical drama-series featuring her, also streamed. In person too I find her very, very attractive. As an on-camera person she is very articulate and communicative. Salute to her daughterhood-womanhood and to her mother Neena Gupta’s motherhood-parenthood.

In this Pregnant Recall I am sharing a little first-hand witness observation of back then, 1989. I have seen Masaba in her Mummy’s stomach! Back in the late 1980s and to be precise in 1989 when Neena Gupta was carrying to-be-born Masaba in her body, amidst different and I guess difficult circumstances, I would sometimes catch up, or rather be in company at friend OM PURI’s Versova residence in Mumbai. Neena would often be there. Though a very assured and decisive mother-to-be, Neena was also a single, unmarried to-be-mother. Those were leisurely times, as in one had plenty of time. Om was the only one most busy. But I recall with deepest admiration how he would play an exemplary host at his home. He would cook special dishes for us and for Neena in particular. I especially recall how he would very, very carefully drive a pregnant Neena back to her home and then me to my stay-place. Tabloid-journalism would have a field day in discussing the fatherhood-options because Neena chose to keep the paternity undisclosed. Om’s name also cropped up as a probable. But he was just a friend. In jest he would complain-tease Neena—‘Yaar tune mujhe aise hi badnaam karwa diya…’ They would laugh in togetherness and friendship. He was a man who was naturally very progressive, non-judgmental and a great friend to women. Alas!

‘BADHAAI HO’ KO BADHAAI

Congratulations to the film ‘Badhaai Ho’ that released in 2018, and one that I end up viewing time and again on television. This film resonates at many levels. Its publicity categorization as ‘Romantic Comedy’ is inept, as in not fair to the depth of emotions and the layering the film displays.

It is a wonderfully original film-script (original as far as my knowledge and google search goes) and one that amalgamates, unites, all the areas of filmmaking to create a cinema that is creatively and box-office-wise a very good success. More importantly the subject is, for our cinema, a very gently progressive and entertaining combination.

Neena Gupta plays the elder protagonist, Priyamvada Kaushik, a middle-aged housewife-wife-daughter-in-law-mother, happily living a routine life with her loving husband and grown-up sons in Delhi. Her’s is a very middle-class, traditional and bonded family, based in the local Delhi government quarter, mohalla environs. Husband Jeetendra (Jeetu) Kaushik (Gajraj Rao) works in the railways as TT. He has provided well for the family within the income resources and carried his familial duties most earnestly in life. Elder son Nakul Kaushik (Ayushmaan Khurana), the employed protagonist, is a contemporary young man who drives the storytelling. He is going around with a modern, young woman, Renee Sharma (Sanya Malhotra) who comes from a social-strata higher than his. The Kaushik family also has a younger school-going son, Vishwas Kaushik (Gullar), played by Shardul Rana. And this parivaar over and above stars Durgamati Kaushik (Surekha Sikri), the octogenarian mother/mother-in-law/grandmother, who with her multilayered overpowering presence, overtly and covertly bosses over the family scene. A widow living with her son Jeetu Kaushik and his family, she not only spends her time maalaa-japoing the sacred thread, but by also keeping a pair of keenest eyes on all that transpires in the family. Jeetu and Priyamvada at this stage of their life are an endearingly compatible couple who are adept at negotiating the middle-class family challenges and duniyadaari. The crux of the narrative gets ignited when Priyamvada and husband, upon a visit to a lady-doctor, find to their surprise-anguish that Priyamvada at her age is pregnant for over weeks. Now they have no option but to take the family into confidence and reveal the arrival of the third child growing inside the middle-aged Priyamvada who chooses to keep the child in her. The sons are outraged in their own ways. The mother-in-law is bitter-tongued and at her barb-giving best.

An extended family’s marriage-invite and their participation therein, with Priyamvada by now visibly pregnant, leads to fun and frolic, but also to caustic reactions from the extended family at the ‘embarrassing’ late-age pregnancy. Priyamvada feels devastated. Her most caring husband is also a very obedient son to his mother. It is now that the matriarch Durgamati Kaushik morally rises to the occasion and to the family discord. Most surprisingly she takes up for her daughter-in-law who has served her most devotedly through the years, even wiping her physical stool-urine, while putting up with the inherent mother-in-law, daughter-in-law discord. She tells the extended family that childbearing at whatever age is a sign of a couple’s love for each other.

Renee, elder son Nakul’s girlfriend and colleague, has a very positive and progressive influence on Nakul. The broken strands of the Kaushik family symbiotically re-unite to become more empowered. The film ends with Priyamvada going into labour and a beautiful little girl born into the joyous family.

The mis-e-scene is almost pitch perfect.

The writing and direction extraordinarily gentle, cheeky, emotional, amusing and satirical. Local Delhi is perfectly written in vocabulary and spoken in acting. The ensemble cast is top notch. Neena Gupta is in perhaps her best on-screen film role. She perfectly plays the vulnerable, traditional bahu and a very happy wife of a most friendly and supportive husband. Gajraj Rao as Jeetu Kaushik, the patriarch of the family, does the very demanding role of the balancing factor in the wife-mother-equation with most laudable expertise.

Ayushmaan Khurana as Nakul is the point-of-view character who is central to the story. His is a perfectly nuanced act. As his girlfriend and colleague Renee, actor Sanya Malhotra beautifully casts a very empowering influence on the evolving Nakul.

Younger school-going son of the family, Vishwas ‘Gullar’ Kaushik, is most embarrassed and upset at the new child development. His submissive personality gets challenged and withdrawn by the quips and barbs of fellow students.

Elder brother Nakul takes matters in his hand and shows him the way to confront his peers. Shardul Rana plays the role with a fine vulnerability amidst confusion. And towering over them all, as demanded, is Surekha Sikri! She is outstanding in her multilayered portrayal of a scheming, grumbling, demanding old lady, who finally emerges to be the moral compass by being her pregnant bahu’s supporter. Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi is herein of a completely another shade.

All the departments are in perfect sync to create the extraordinary out of the ordinary. The budget of Rs. 29 crore ended up earning 221.44 (as per website search) and more.

Badhaai Ho is now quite a cult film. It evokes in me smiles, laughter and a film of tears. I learn from the net that in Feb 2022 a sequel Badhaai Do got released. It perhaps under-performed.

‘Badhaai Ho’ ko baar baar Badhaai Do.

MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD

All the above was fiction sharing. Now to real life. This one is not about the novel by Eric Segal or its film adaptation (1983), nor about its adaptation as Hindi film Masoom (1983). It is a real-life account of an out of the ordinary, rather life-altering life choice that seemingly ordinary people make in the real world. This real-life incident, or rather a chapter of life my parents shared with me when I was an adult. It is personal-political-ideological and has stayed very close to me.

It flashbacks to Bihar of the 1950s, 1960s. It was that time when the Communist Party of India (CPI) was a very active, energetic force in Bihar. Though India had attained freedom and was charting its own course, her Left politics was then often in confrontation with governance. They imagined a different polity and nationhood. Active and rebellious Communist leaders and workers were often in jail, or lived underground for long spells. My parents themselves had met underground as political comrades and would subsequently marry in 1959.

A comrade-friend, very closely known to my parents, would for long spells be in jail, or hiding underground. He was a very devoted, full-timer Communist. He was also a man married in a very traditional union and had two children. His political activities would keep him mostly away from the domestic turf. An absentee husband. However, once upon his return, after a long absence, he discovered that his wife was pregnant. She told him her Truth. He was not the father of this child growing in her. Those were medically speaking, socially speaking, different times. Moreover, the wife wanted to keep the child and give birth to the child. The comrade-husband was left facing the turmoil of a dilemma that would shake his very being. It was an existential one. My parents were taken into confidence. It got decided that the pregnant wife would be shifted from her matrimonial home to a neutral place and stay put there all through her pregnancy. Their traditional family and their world would then not get suspicious of the paternity.

Eventually the child got born. The secret of fatherhood remained a secret. The husband owned up the newly born with full emotions of fatherhood. But the comrade-husband-man also took a decision as atonement. It was akin to self-punishment. He left active politics and the CPI forever. He felt it was his political passion and absentee family-life that had brought this upon them.

The passage of time passed through their lives. The child he had not biologically fathered grew to be his most favourite child amongst the three children. That child got his maximum love and indulgence. He had long forgotten that that child was not his.

Later in the years, with his approaching old age, dementia and physical challenges also set in. Long before dementia it was his most alert heart and brain which had accepted and embraced a most difficult happening in their family life. An extraordinary embrace of acceptance.