Parmeet Sethi kisses Yash Chopra statue in Switzerland as sons take ‘ashirwad' by touching its feet; Archana Puran Singh recalls Mohabbatein memories
Archana Puran Singh and her husband, Parmeet Sethi, were vacationing in Switzerland with their sons recently. In their final travel vlog from the trip, they visited the statue of filmmaker Yash Chopra in Interlaken, as both Parmeet and Archana shared their experiences of working with the legendary director. Parmeet played a supporting role in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, which marked the debut of Yash Chopra's son, Aditya Chopra, as a director. Parmeet was also given a break as a filmmaker by their YRF banner. Archana, on the other hand, was directed by him in the film Mohabbatein.
In their latest vlog, they made a trip to the statue, which is a popular destination for Indian tourists. Yash filmed several of his movies in Switzerland, boosting tourism for the country. 'We've been to Switzerland so many times, but we've never visited the statue. When I was working on Mohabbatein, Yash ji and I would talk for hours about his old movies, like Silsila. Yash ji, you are very much in our memories, and it was an honour to work with you.' Parmeet added, 'I debuted twice with Yash ji. The first was as an actor in DDLJ, and the second was as a filmmaker, with Badmaash Company. He's my godfather.' Parmeet proceeded to kiss the statue on the side.
Also read – 'What's wrong with my wife being more famous, successful?' asks Parmeet Sethi: 'Archana Puran Singh is the judge of the biggest Indian show'
Their sons, Ayushmaan and Aaryamann, posed with the statue as well. Ayushmaan said, 'I have a clear memory of meeting him. I was very young, but I remember. This statue is really nicely made; he looks exactly the same.' Both Aayushmaan and Aryamann proceeded to touch the statue's feet as a mark of respect. 'Ashirwad liye bina nahi jaa sakte,' they said.
Archana posts regular vlogs on her YouTube channel. Most of her videos feature the entire family, including the grandparents and several members of their staff. Her channel now has over 700,000 subscribers. Before they left for the vacation, they were in the middle of a food vlogging series, where they'd try some of the most popular food items in the city of Mumbai. In an interview with SCREEN, Parmeet spoke about their unexpected career as vloggers, and said, 'It makes me happy that millions of people are watching us. We were not expecting it – socha tha 20-25K views ajayenge and now it's in millions. We all are very grateful. It's like a second career for me. Archana, I and the kids have started taking it seriously. Maybe it is the plan B which is coming good.'
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The organisers have commissioned a survey to assess the impact of the prize over seven years, and many people in the world of books have been interviewed for it. But whether the findings will form the basis of a newer version of the prize, or will feed into a closure report, is a closely guarded secret at the moment. Play Why, then, did the JCB Prize fold? Why, for that matter, did its big-ticket predecessor, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature go the same way after its 2019 awards, the ninth in the series that gave $25,000 to the winning title (shared equally between the writer and translator in case of a translated book). The onset of the pandemic may have forced the hands of the sponsors, although there, too, no formal announcement was made. Still, the JCB Prize for Literature came on the scene with a grand flourish and with seemingly powerful intent, as exemplified by the extravagant marketing, advertising, and event-management that went into the first two years of the prize with Rana Dasgupta as the director. Dasgupta, for reasons never made clear to the literary community, was let go of immediately after the second year of the prize, and a few months later, Mita Kapur, founder of the literary agency Siyahi, took over, leading the prize over the next five years, including the difficult ones during the pandemic. To its credit, despite having to go online for everything, the prize did not falter in its commitment during this period, returning to something like the grandeur of its pre-pandemic version from 2022 onwards. What changed, then, forcing the decision to close down? Maybe it is important to accept and acknowledge here that the corporate entity behind the prize, JCB, has had its own inadvertent image problem in India with its bulldozers being pressed into service for demolition of private property as a means of punitive administrative steps undertaken by several state governments. This even led to an open letter criticising the prize, signed by over 120 writers, translators, and publishers in 2024. But the company, of course, has not gone public with its reasons for stopping – or, at the very least, pausing – the prize. Did the prize make an impact? Perhaps the more important question, however, is what sort of JCB-Prize-shaped hole there will be in India's literary world now. To make even informed guesses, it is, of course, necessary to consider the achievements of the prize over its seven years. And the very first question here is, are seven years long enough for a literary prize to have made significant effect? The JCB Prize for Literature was by no means the first high-profile literary prize in India. The Crossword Book Award was instituted by the bookshop chain back in 1998 and continues to be run despite a brief break. The Hindu Literary Prize began life in 2010, continuing the till the outbreak of the pandemic in 2019. The Sahitya Akademi awards were established as far back as in 1954, and continue to be given out. And there was, of course, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Stepping as it did into a space already primed for literary awards, the JCB Prize had the luxury of being able to hit the ground running. Given this backdrop, seven years was long enough to build on an impactful beginning. For comparison, remember that Tomb of Sand won the International Booker in its seventh year. The greatest opportunity for the prize was to create interest – and, by extension, a return to a reading culture – in not just the winning book but the entire list of shortlisted and even longlisted titles. Over seven years, these numbered 71 (in 2019, two of Perumal Murugan's novels were considered as a combined work) and 35, respectively, amounting to a fine showcase of fiction from India. And yet, despite efforts ranging from special films, appearances at literary festivals, and bookshop partnerships, none of the novels could be said to have gained a boost because of their appearance on the longlist or shortlist. Why, even the winning books have not reported anything remotely close to the kind of sales that India's two International Booker Prize winners did. Consider the seven fine novels that have won the JCB Prize between 2018 and 2024. 2018: Jasmine Days, Benyamin, translated from the Malayalam by Shahnaz Habib. 2019: The Far Field, Madhuri Vijay. 2020: Moustache, S Hareesh, translated from the Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil. 2021: Delhi, A Soliloquy, M Mukundan, translated from the Malayalam by Fathima EV and Nandakumar K. 2022: The Paradise of Food, Khalid Jawed, translated from the Urdu by Baran Farooqi. 2023: Fire Bird, Perumal Murugan, translated from the Tamil by Janaki Kannan. 2024: Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life, Upamanyu Chatterjee. While official sales figures are not available, the informal response from publishers was that none of these books became break-out successes among book-buyers. Play Arguably the most important actual achievement of the prize, therefore, was to create expectations of winning, among writers and publishers. For the first time, both of these groups thought actively about the possibility of winning the prize when they put out a title. Perhaps the great change in publishing programmes came because of the decision of the prize to consider translated books as well as those written in English. As many as 19 of the 36 shortlisted titles over seven years have been translations from various Indian languages. While it might be an exaggeration to state that publishers looked at translations with greater intent because of the chances of one of them winning the prize, there was undoubtedly a renewed focus on translated because of the prize. The impact of the end of the prize, then, will be felt mostly by the publishing community. Most of all, probably, by the writers and translators who will not win the Rs 25-lakh and Rs 10-lakh purses. With serious writing being a monetarily dismal practice in India, awards like these can go a long way towards supporting future work by prize-winning authors. For readers, unfortunately, the closure of the prize may have very little impact. Still, the JCB Prize for Literature has create a model. The literary community will certainly be hoping for a second version of the prize – or a new one to replace it.
