When I was a child, I thought Nirupa Roy was Niru Paroy, (since I only knew the name Niru...I knew three different Niru's... and Nirupa never occurred to me). I spent quite some time thinking what kind of a surname Paroy is! Whatever does it mean, which state do the Paroys come from.
Later, when I bothered to read the credits in the movies, I figured out what her name was. Oh well, so she was not from some exotic descent, just good old Bengali (Actually, she was Gujarati according to wikipedia!) So then I spent some time wondering what the heck kind of a name was Nirupa? I knew Rupa, Surupa, Rupali, Rupal, but Nirupa? I had just started Hindi as a second language in school, and according to what I read in the grammar books, "ni" kind of meant "lacking". As in नीरस was dull, निराकार meant without shape. Then Nirupa meant what? No roop? Too complex!
After watching too much of her sad depiction of Ma, I started to despise her! To the point that some times, I would actually try to tune myself out whenever she appeared on screen.
Anyway...so what inspired this thought process was this post by Indiequill. I forwarded it to my friend. She (and me too) loved the bit about the Maaaaaa....
And I started thinking about her yet again! Wondering if she actually had any sons, and did she expect them to be like Beeeejay (Amitabh Bacchan aka Vijay...duh!!!). Google came to the rescue, of course. I loved this line from wikipedia:
"She was notorious for always playing the mother that was either blind, handicapped, poor. She almost always mangaged to lose her kids somehow in every movie"
But coming back to her own son... here's what I found!
Maa ke naam pe kalank, huh?!
6 years ago