Wonderful: Jaya Bachchan on filmmakers' fancy for literature

Veteran actress Jaya Bachchan said it's a "wonderful" trend in Indian cinema that filmmakers are going for subjects based on published literature and said this augurs well for women in cinema.

"I think a new trend that has started is that people have started taking subjects from published literature in our country, Indian literature or even others (like William Shakespeare's works).

"That's a wonderful trend because once we go back to literature, we will naturally go back to a lot of things that should be done the way it should be done," she said at a special session of the Kolkata Literary Meet here Sunday evening.

Jaya also appreciated the different genres of cinema that have come up.

"I am hopeful. We are looking at different kinds of cinema," she said in response to the progress of women in cinema.

Jaya had a supporting role in Satyajit Ray's Bengali film "Mahanagar" (1963) at the age of 15 and was seen in the lead role in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's "Guddi" in 1971.

Quizzed on the relevance of her films she said: "I don't think it ('Guddi') is relevant today but 'Mahanagar' is."