'Dadi' of Indian screens: Sushma Seth reflects on a career playing the matriarch in shows and movies

Time of India

19-07-2025

It almost felt like a prophecy for a 13-something
Sushma Seth
to essay the role of a "Haryanvi old biddy" in a play written by her uncle, Maheshwar Dayal as the role would foreshadow her future as one of the most beloved Dadis of Indian screens, in both television and cinema.
Seth, who has been a regular on TV screens, theatre, and cinema - mostly in a matronly role since her debut in "Junoon" (1978) as Shashi Kapoor's aunt, remembered playing a 75-year-old nawab in another production by Dayal.
"In one of the plays, I played a Haryanvi old biddy, and she ruled her household and was called Tai. It was very similar to what I did in 'Hum Log'. That was my first play.
"In another one, I played a 75 year old Nawab sahab.
There was no beard but I wore a topee and an achkan and churidar and I spoke like an old nawab sahab," the 89-year-old said at a session at India Habitat Centre on Friday.
As she acted professionally in plays after growing up, it became destiny for her to play roles of elderly women, something that she took in her stride by adding her "own shades" to the characters.
By the end of the shoot of "Junoon", which was directed by late filmmaker Shyam Benegal, Seth received offers from Raj Kapoor for "Prem Rog", Yash Chopra for "Silsila", and Benegal for "Kalyug", all the roles of women in their senior years.
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"So for my own self I would give them a couple of shades depending on how their children behaved. If it were an indulgent mother or a mother who had a wayward son like Sanjay Dutt in his first film ('Rocky').
"He was a spoiled brat and I felt he was spoiled because his mother didn't take care of him and put him on the right path. So I had to be a little uncertain of how I should treat the child or be indulgent or overpampering him or overlooking all his faults," the veteran actor said.
Seth added that the shades made her characters feel different, even when they looked similar in the script.
"That way for my own self I would give different shades to the character depending on the children whose parent I played. And hoped to god that audience also saw that little bit of difference," she said.
Even though Seth first appeared on the silver screen, it was her role as "Dadi" in family drama "Hum Log" (1984) on Doordarshan that immortalised her.
Directed by P Kumar Vasudev, "Hum Log" followed the struggles and aspirations of a middle-class family.
In her late 40s at the time, Seth was not an ideal candidate to play the role of the matriarch but the "spoiled brat" of a character felt too irresistible to her.
"Kumar told me I was too young to play dadi. I said, just give me the script and we will see. When I read the script, I felt this is the only character I want to do. I just loved the dadi of 'Hum Log'.
She was a spoiled brat, indulgent by her husband and her son, and she ill treated her daughter in law and pampered one daughter and didn't pamper the uglier one.
"She was a typical character and I loved doing that character that one could go to town with such a character which you can't do otherwise," she said.
With limited resources in makeup and dresses, Seth improvised using her mother's old clothes, a wig from Mumbai and an inimitable accent.
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"I ordered a wig from Bombay, I pulled out old jumpers from my mother's trunk that they used to wear in the 1920s and for wedding scenes I pulled out those old sarees of that time. And for the first day's shoot I did my own makeup, I put the dress with that seedha palla and I said, 'Ab batao, kahan baithna hai, ka karna hai?'" she recalled with an accent that became unique to her role.
Seth, whose last commercial role was in "Kal Ho Na Ho" as Preity Zinta's grandmother, currently works with NGO Arpana, directing plays and dance dramas with children.