She reduced her film appearances out of choice when motherhood happened as she never believed in "dumping off my children and going off to work". But after spreading her magic on the screen again with "Dilwale", actress Kajol is enthused to take on more work in the film world now that her daughter and son are old enough.
"I hope I will be seen on screen more... I'd like to work more now. I took a break right after 'My Name Is Khan' (2010) because my son was born and then he was still very young. Now my son is five years old," Kajol told IANS here.
"I will be starting a film in the mid-2016, but no, I am not planning to do three films a year like Shah Rukh Khan, in any way. I can't work as hard as him," added the actress, whose effervescence is intact at 41.
Kajol and Ajay, who got married in 1999, are parents to two children - daughter Nysa and son Yug.
After the birth of her daughter in 2003, she did few films like "Fanaa", "U Me Aur Hum", "My Name Is Khan", "We Are Family" and "Toonpur Ka Superhero". And again, after Yug's birth, Kajol decided she would devote her time to motherhood.
In fact, in a previous interview to IANS, she had confessed that the only reason she gave up films was her children.
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"I have not given birth to them to just dump them and go off to work. I am not that kind of a person," Kajol said back then.
But when "Dilwale" came her way, Kajol, a Padma Shri award winner, said it was her daughter Nysa who urged her to step out of the house and return to face the arclights.
"I honestly think it's very educative for children to have working parents, and to have a working mother mostly, because that's where the influence comes on the girl child."
"When I was a child, I did resent sometimes that my mother went to work, and I used to tell her, 'Mom, why can't you be like other mothers who are at home and cooking?' She used to be like 'No, I have to work. I need to work'."
"At that point in time, maybe I felt a resentment towards her work, but when I started working, I realised that the work ethic I have, the way I work, the amount of hard work that I did was only because I had seen my mother do that all my life."
"So, hence and therefore, I feel that my daughter hopefully will understand that when she sees her mother go for work... when she grows up, she will realise that it's important for her to work as well for her own independence and development," said the daughter of veteran actress Tanuja.
Generally too, Kajol believes that "it's important for women to work".
"In whatever area they choose, women should work. And it doesn't necessarily have to be about going out of the house and working. But the work ethic has to be understood that it's not only a man's job to be the breadwinner for the family. That's where our women's equality has to start."
(Radhika Bhirani can be contacted at radhika.b@ians.in)