Teji Bachchan Biography: Age, Family, Social Activism and Legacy

 

Quick Facts: Born 12 August 1914 · Faisalabad, Punjab · Died 21 December 2007 (age 93) · Social activist · Wife of poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, mother of Amitabh Bachchan.

Teji Bachchan was born Teji Suri into a Khatri Sikh Punjabi family in Faisalabad. She met Harivansh Rai Srivastava, then a lecturer at Allahabad University, when he attended a college event in Lahore. The couple married in Allahabad in 1941, and upon her wedding, Teji became a homemaker. She remained a lover of the stage throughout her life, and would sing at social gatherings if pressed. The Bachchans had two sons: Amitabh Bachchan and Ajitabh Bachchan.

During her husband‘s lifetime, Harivansh remained completely engrossed in his work, leaving Teji to handle all family matters. Even in social engagements, the poet willingly played a minor role to his sociable wife. The Bachchans were a part of India’s literary circuit and high society, and the couple sang at events together.

She played Lady Macbeth in her husband‘s Hindi adaptation of Macbeth and also did a cameo appearance in Amitabh-starrer Kabhie Kabhie. In 1973, she was appointed as one of the Directors of the Film Finance Corporation, a Government of India undertaking whose main objective was to finance the production of purposeful films of good quality. She was in Lilavati Hospital for almost the whole of 2007 and was shifted to the ICU in November 2007 after her condition worsened. She died at the age of 93 on 21 December 2007 after prolonged illness. Amitabh Bachchan remembered her as “the most beautiful woman in the universe” and “the fighter who guarded her children like a lioness does her cubs”.