Best known for her scheming Payal Mehra avatar in the popular serial, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, life is far from easy for Jaya Bhattacharya right now. Besides being out of work, she also has an unwell mother to support, and the strain is showing…

Speaking about her predicament, Jaya revealed that she desperately needs work to get out of a financial crisis. “My mother has been admitted (in hospital) from November 26. I am in a deep fix as all my finances are down the drain. Due to a renovation contract for my house, I am currently put up at my rakhi brother’s place,” she said. “Though there is a lot of liberty in taking decisions and doing things, I don’t have anybody whom I can depend on or whose shoulder I can cry on. I am a strong woman and I have never given up. I will never. But I am in a terrible fix and badly in need of work,” she made her intention plain.
Jaya’s 79-year-old mother had been diagnosed with heart problems and is in the ICU currently. The steep cost of medical care is clearly taking its toll on the actress. Though she has been seen in serials such as Thapki Pyaar Ki, Kasamh Se, Pal Chhin, Kesar and Hatim, as well as Shabana Azmi’s 2017 film, The Wishing Tree, work has not been consistent for the actress.

In today’s scenario, Bhattacharya is not exactly in demand, which is the case with most actors of times past. In fact, more than a decade after the show ended, she still hasn’t been able to emerge from the shadow of her portrayal of Payal Mehra. In an interview, she had stated, “When that role made me famous, it should have been a passing phase, but it got stuck to me. For the longest time, I was made to stay in that frame and not allowed to breathe freely.”