Rajan Shahi and Deepa Shahi’s Anupama continues to introduce compelling and inspiring socially relevant tracks while keeping the entertainment quotient high. In the ongoing sequence, the audience gets to see that Hansmukh, played by Arvind Vaidya, is called for help by a friend who tells him and Anupama, played by Rupali Ganguly, that his son and daughter-in-law are ill-treating him and his wife. The track sheds light on how the seniors are being treated as servants in their own house and made to do household chores while struggling to eat even one proper meal.

Speaking in reference to the ongoing track, Rupali reflects on her special bond with the elderly, whom she fondly calls the “older babies.” She said, “They obviously have seen life much more than me. There was a time when I was in college, and I used to go and volunteer in old people’s homes.”

She even recalled making a documentary on an old-age home and shared, “There was one at Andheri East, and I had made a documentary a long time ago on these people whose children have left them in their golden years. So they were heart-wrenching, heartbreaking stories. I think they are the babies who need a lot of attention and a lot of care.”

And though she mentioned that they should be treated like babies, she stressed that they should be respected too. She said, “There has to be respect, like ‘Oh, you’re my mom, okay, you know better,’ ‘Oh, you’ve seen the world more than me. So I’m still a child in front of you.’ So you cannot even fool them because they catch it very fast. I have seen it with my dad. All they need is our time, and they want to talk about what they’ve done in their lives, their struggles.”

“My father slept on the footpath, sharing the room with 4-5 people from Agri Pahada, to become something in life. That is a whole life of experience. My father-in-law, he fought the Second World War as a foot soldier. He used to show all his bullet marks and tell us stories of literally waiting for death right in front of him,” she added.

Rupali believes they have so many life experiences to share and said, “All you have to do is have patience and have a listening ear.” And the biggest key for us is to have lots of patience, and you will get unimaginable love in return. Like there are times when you take your mother for granted, so there are times when I would get irritated with my mom. Even my husband, Ashwin, would at times get irritated with his mom, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her or respect her. His mother was his world.”

“And for my son, Rudransh, I always wanted him to grow up with his grandparents because the kind of upbringing they can give, even we can’t. Even sometimes I tell my mother, ‘Yaar mumma, I’ll call you back,’ and then I check myself and tell her, ‘Mumma, you tell me, it’s okay, the shoot will wait,’ and I will speak to Mumma,” she added.

She explained that with their growing age, you never know which moment with them is their last. She added, “So every moment with them, with the golden seniors, you need to cherish, because they have their life lessons to tell us, which we will carry forward; that is the legacy that we will pass on to our children.”

Rupali even shared the jingle she had written for her parents that went like “Tu ne hi sikhaya chalna, jeevan mein girke sambhalna, tera pyaar bhara wo saya, mujhe door bahut yaad aaya, tu chhaya hai, main darpan, tujhko ye jeevan Arpan, tum se mila hai ye jahan, hum hai teri parchahiya.”

She believes no matter how much one does for their parents, it will still be less. She said, “You get so many blessings from them. If there is pure, unconditional love, then it is your parents. There is no greater God in this world than them. Truly, heaven lies at the feet of your parents.”

She further shared her visit to the Gauri Gopal Ashram, where she met a lot of women who were abandoned by their children. She said, “It was heartbreaking to see that their children have abandoned them. The mother who raised you from childhood, the mother who lets you eat her share of bread—you cannot keep that mother with you, because you have a new family; you abandon your mother.”

“There cannot be a greater sin in the world than not asking for your parents, who do not care for their children,” she added.

She feels blessed that her mother and mother-in-law are still there with her. Her mother’s video dancing to Shararat, along with her brother Vijay Ganguly, has gone viral. She said, “We feel so proud because my mother, she loves dancing, and earlier she wouldn’t like to come out, but now Mummy gets more invitations to parties from young people than me, even more than Vijay.”

“Farah Khan is coming to shoot with us, and she wants to shoot with Mummy, so nowadays I get calls, and I have to give Mummy’s number to people. She is having the time of her life; she refuses to leave Pappa’s house and come and stay with us, and she is dancing her heart out. Thu thu thu, hope no one casts an evil eye on my mother; tomorrow I will remove all the evil eyes from her. “I think I have become her mother, and she has become our child,” she added.

While concluding, she shared a dream of hers and hopes that through Anupama it comes true. “I would like to build an animal shelter that would be taken care of by these golden seniors, whose families have abandoned them. I would like to have old people taking care of fur babies, and we live in a very happy community—that is a dream. I had so many dreams that Anupama has fulfilled hopefully, and hopefully I will be able to do this too through Anupamaa. I want to thank Rajan ji for this,” Rupali ended.