Namita Lal:
Karan Johar is absolutely right. Family is everything. It’s all about loving your family. Besides a very large family, I also have some friends who are also absolutely like family. So, I guess it’s about loving all the people who are close to you. With time, family members move to different parts of the world to pursue their dreams, but they are still family. I am in Mumbai to pursue my passion for acting in production and direction and my daughters are in London and the USA and that’s how I like it. We are in touch all the time. Technology makes it very convenient to talk almost daily and strangely I’m more connected with my family now. Now then I would be because everybody’s following each other’s journey and there’s always a deep sense of love and affection and connection.
Ayush Anand:
This is giving me a great sense of nostalgia now. I’m born and brought up in a Punjabi joint family in Delhi. We were seven brothers and sisters in the house and I and my real brother are the youngest of all. You can’t even imagine how pampered we were. I have great and countless memories of those days of watching films and cricket match together, playing all sorts of games like volleyball, and cricket and eating late-night meals like Maggie and paranthas. I really feel that we are the last generation which was fortunate enough to experience and live that experience as now families are becoming nuclear.
Somy Ali:
This is a very complicated question for me because I have moved around so much in my life and resided in different countries and cultures. To begin with, I left Pakistan and moved to the U.S. at the age of 11, then at 16, I moved to India and at 24, I moved back home to Miami, Florida. My only introduction to a joint family system was when I moved in with my ex in Mumbai and what I saw was absolutely beautiful. The care and concern they each had for one another is something I had never experienced or witnessed. For the first time, I understood the model of a joint family system. From birth, I only saw my parents and my younger brother under one roof in Pakistan and to be completely honest it was not a healthy home environment. My brother and I were exposed to things no child should see or experience. I don’t want to divulge too many details on that subject right now, but in short, my only family is my younger brother. As for comparing the two models of family living, I strongly believe it is strictly what seems comfortable for the people involved. It is their choice and there shouldn’t be any cultural pressures placed on the new generation. I veer towards living in a manner that would bring peace and happiness to all parties involved whether living in a joint family system or separately. In the end, we are all products of our childhoods, therefore, how we choose to live as adults is strictly contingent upon how we were raised, and the values instilled in us. In my case, I choose to live an individualistic lifestyle as that seems to be a more suitable fit for me and the same goes for my younger brother. As I always say, to each their own.
