There’s no getting away from it: Aishwarya on raising her daughter in public eye

Bollywood actors such as Aishwarya, Kareena and Saif open up about their kids being chased by the media

Former Miss World and international Bollywood icon Aishwarya Rai Bachchan recently talked about all the comments and unsolicited attention her daughter, Aaradhya, gets from the paparazzi and how it upsets the youngster a lot of the times. “It’s there,” Aishwarya said she tells Aaradhya though. “What can you do?”

The Devdas star made the revelations in an interview with Pinkvilla, wherein she was asked to share her two cents about the recent statements made by Gauri Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan made on how the constant media glare is affects their children. Both had revealed that their respective youngsters prefer staying indoors because of the paparazzi.

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“Protect is the keyword and it’s the natural instinct of every parent,” Aishwarya said. “There’s no getting away from this; it is who we are. And we’ll be like this, I like saying, till my last breath. Having said that, however much we would like to discuss it, it’s not going away. This is the way of our chosen life; this is part of our industry.”

She added, “With paparazzi, we can engage on a human level in requesting some semblance of sanity around children. If they’re too loud, you can ask them to tone it down because they’re not going to go away and we aren’t going to disappear from the face of the Earth.”

Aishwarya believes that, “Thanks to smartphones, everyone is paparazzi. I think intruding on someone’s privacy was, and always will be, an uncomfortable situation.”

For her part, the global superstar said that ever since Aaradhya was little, she has tried to keep things "real and normal" for her. “For us, it’s probably weird because we have lived in a world where it wasn’t there. She’s born into a world where it’s only been there. Fortunately, I’ve so far been able to keep the twinkle in her eye,” she added.

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Previously, it was Kareena r/who revealed little Taimur Ali Khan doesn’t like it when she takes pictures of him. “He thinks paps are his friends. But when I want to take his photo, he says ‘Amma, no pictures’.”

Kareena's husband and Taimur's father Saif Ali Khan, on the other hand, once said that their neighbours had started complaining because they thought the photographers were creating an "unsafe" environment outside the building.

“They’d hang around and smoke so it starts looking a little unsavoury,” the Laal Kaptaan actor said, adding it was very ‘elegant’ of them to move on. “The cops came and we had a chat about it and they said ‘fine’.”

Nonetheless, Saif claimed Taimur is the least bit interested in the paparazzi. “Taimur is very happy; he is the least interested. In fact, he has started saying 'No pictures please' as well. He doesn’t like being photographed.”

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On the work front, Aishwarya has most recently voiced the lead character of Maleficent in the Hindi version of Disney’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. Angelina Jolie plays the character in the original English film.

Asked about whether she has ever had the chance to meet Angelina, Aishwarya said, “I missed meeting her. She’d come down to South Africa, for one of our award functions. I think it was for Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, when she and Shah Rukh were presenting my Best Actress award, so I missed meeting her then. I’ve not had a conversation with her but we've just sort of clocked each other at Cannes."

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is due out in theatres on October 18. Next up, Aishwarya will star in a film by director Mani Ratnam.

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