Mama's little girl

Ayesha Javed speaks to screen siren Meera about why she is so passionately fond of her favourite photograph

Behind the airs and many affectations that sultry filmstar Meera is today renowned for, lies a baby girl who is happy just loving her mother and being loved in return. 

This pictorial story is about a six year old girl and an Eid celebration two decades ago. All decked up in traditional gotay walay clothes and glass bangles, with their palms covered in intricate henna patterns, the mother and daughter were a picture to behold (I know I'm borrowing a cliche here but then cliches become cliches because they are so true.) 

As the mum carefully brushed her daughter's silken tresses, a tiny tear of pride escaped her eyes for her daughter was so beautiful and so innocent that she could not help feeling proud. The daughter looked up with a question mark in her sparkling eyes - the mother shook her head, smiled and kissing her on her cheek, led her outside. There someone clicked a camera, took their photograph and later handed it to the mother. 

Two decades later the daughter, now as pretty as her mother, had become the most in-demand actress of her time. Her sultry smile, cat-like movements and the innocence that never failed to deceive ever-ignorant men, turned her into the charmer much sought after by directors, heroes and audiences alike. Soon she became the very reason for going to a cinema.

But all this while the picture stayed in the mother's room, all the more precious to her now because she knew that the baby girl she loved so dearly was now a high flier. Every morning the mother dusts the picture herself and when leaving never fails to lock the door behind her for fear of her daughter handing it to a journalist and so losing it.

"So many (reporters) have lost my pictures," says Meera. "I love this picture, but I don't remember anything of where it was taken or who took it."

" I have always been very attached to my parents - especially my mother. People say my mother was a goddess of beauty in her youth and I have inherited her looks.

"The reason why this picture is my favourite is because of the value it holds for my mother."