Despite being born into the illustrious Bachchan family, Navya Naveli Nanda says she never felt any pressure to step into the world of acting.
In a recent conversation with Variety India, Navya addressed the long-standing curiosity around whether she was ever expected to carry forward the cinematic legacy of her grandparents,
Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan.
“No, I don’t think there was any pressure, and I think that my family has always been very supportive of everyone having their own independent choices, especially when it comes to their careers. So, there was no pressure ever to join a certain side or a certain legacy of the family,” she said.
Navya revealed that her interests were always inclined towards entrepreneurship. “I think for me, growing up, it was always seeing my dad (entrepreneur Nikhil Nanda) work and seeing my dadi (paternal grandmother) and my bua (aunt) and my mom (author-philanthropist Shweta Bachchan Nanda) start businesses of their own.
So, I think that’s really what inspired and excited me as a kid. I was always very clear from a very young age that that was really the side that I would kind of choose and lean in to in my own career. ”
Pursuing management at IIM Ahmedabad
Navya Naveli Nanda, entrepreneur and granddaughter of Amitabh Bachchan, is currently pursuing a two-year Blended Post Graduate Programme (BPGP) in Management at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad as part of the Class of 2026. She enrolled in the hybrid (online and on-campus) programme to deepen her business knowledge, describing it as a demanding, rigorous yet rewarding experience.
“Achievement is not a large number”
Navya, who works in the development sector and co-hosts a podcast with her mother Shweta Bachchan Nanda and grandmother Jaya Bachchan, also reflected on what success truly means to her.
“I think this is probably a question that we all grapple with, which is, you know, what does success really mean or what does achievement really mean? I work in the development sector, and for me, achievement or success is not a large number. It’s about impacting one person’s life as deeply as you can, and the work that we do really tries to focus more on that rather than thousands and thousands of people. It’s really about how you can change one person’s life through what you’re doing, and for me, that is an achievement.
If I’m able to do that even daily I think I would say I’m being successful,” she concluded.
