Kiran Rao recalled the struggle of suffering from multiple miscarriages before her son Azad was born.
Kiran Rao has recently made a successful return with her second directorial venture, ‘Laapataa Ladies.’ The film has been well-received for its heartfelt storytelling and features a cast of fresh faces. In a recent interview, Kiran was asked about her decision to pause her career to focus on raising her son, Azad, over the past decade. She candidly shared the challenges she faced, including multiple miscarriages, before ultimately opting for surrogacy to fulfill her desire to become a mother.
In her conversation with Zoom, Kiran revealed her struggles with fertility issues and her strong desire to have a child. She recalled the difficulties she faced, including years of miscarriages and personal health issues, leading up to Azad’s birth in 2011 via surrogacy. Despite the challenges, Kiran expressed her joy in raising Azad as one of the best experiences of her life and emphasized that she has no regrets about dedicating the past years to motherhood over filmmaking.
She told the portal, “The year that Dhobi Ghat was made was the year that Azad was born. And I had tried very hard to have a child. For five years, I had had a lot of miscarriages, a lot of personal, physical health issues. I was just finding it very hard to have a child. I was really keen to have a child, so when Azad was born it was… I didn’t have to make a decision. Obviously, all I wanted to do was raise my baby.”
She added, “I enjoyed having Azad so much. Those were some of the best years of my life. I’ll never regret not having made a film in 10 years. I have no regrets because I enjoyed it thoroughly.”
Reflecting on her decision to be open about her surrogacy journey, Kiran shared in a past interview that while it is a personal matter, she and Aamir Khan chose to address it openly due to their presence in the public eye. She hoped that sharing their experience would be helpful to others and believed in being transparent about their decision.
Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao tied the knot in 2005. However, they parted ways in 2021. In another interview with Zoom, the director had shared, “Lots of people think that Aamir and I connected on Lagaan, we absolutely didn’t. Aamir and I got together during Swades, he was going to shoot Mangal Pandey at the time. We had just shot a couple of commercials with Ashutosh Gowariker for Coke and that is where Aamir and I reconnected. 3-4 years after Lagaan. I wasn’t in touch with him. In fact, on Lagaan, I barely spoke to him. I was actually seeing somebody else during Lagaan. When Aamir and I started going out in 2004, everybody thought that this started when we were shooting for Lagaan and this caused the divorce, which was not the fact.”
Laapataa Ladies, set in the fictional state of Nirmal Pradesh in 2001, follows the story of brides Phool and Pushpa whose paths cross during a train journey. The film, produced by Aamir Khan Productions and Kiran Rao’s Kindling Productions, has recently completed a successful 50-day run at the box office and was even screened at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
