Daughter Shweta helps Big B choose right scripts

Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan says his daughter Shweta Bachchan Nanda is a great help to him when it comes to choosing the right script to act in.

Amitabh addressed the media at the launch of Shweta's debut novel "Paradise Towers" here on Wednesday.

He said Shweta is opinionated and a lot of times they both discuss about various issues across the world.

"She really is the best actor in the family. She is also very perceptive about observations and I do rely on her many a times as just a rest of the family on many incidents that may happen within the city, home, country and world. She has an opinion. Many times, we discuss the outcome of a film that I may have done or a film that she may have seen. I have to say that she is always been right.

"When she says the film is going to do well, it does well and when she says it's not going to do well, it doesn't. So many times, I have begun to share some of my scripts with her. I am afraid, I couldn't do that earlier and I want an excuse for that but recently though she has been extremely helpful and very perceptive in giving me ideas and thoughts on what I was working on," Big B said.

He said he can only give her love and blessings, and thanked the audience for encouraging Shweta "to grow not just as my daughter but as a woman and a lady".

When Shweta's mother Jaya was asked to share what she felt about her daughter becoming an author, she said: "I knew she would do this. Since she was a child, I knew that she would someday write. It was a mother's instinct. I think she is very inspired by Karan Johar's screenplay writing because the way he does the detailing of his characters in films, is what Shweta has done in this book.

"I was actually quite surprised and I keep asking her if 'this character resembles that person we knew', and then she would say 'No, no, not at all'."

Set in an apartment building in Mumbai of a certain vintage, unlike the new-fangled high-rises dotting the city, "Paradise Towers" revolves around the lives of the residents. If the demographic is carefully inclusive -- Bengalis, Gujaratis, NRIs, Muslims -- the characters faithfully conform to every cliche associated with the communities.

--IANS

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