Karan Johar recently opened up about the challenges he faces as a single parent, particularly addressing his twins Yash and Roohi's growing curiosity about their mother. The children, who refer to Karan's mother as 'mumma', have started to question their family structure, recognizing that she is actually their grandmother. Karan has sought professional advice, including consulting with their school counselor, to navigate these questions.
In a conversation with Faye D’Souza, Karan explained, “It is a modern family in an unusual circumstance, so now I am dealing with questions like ‘whose stomach was I born in? But mumma is not mumma really, she is my grandmother’. I am going to the school counselor to ask how we navigate the situation. Being a parent is never easy.”
Karan welcomed Yash and Roohi via surrogacy in 2017 and has since been raising them with the help of his 81-year-old mother, Hiroo Johar. The twins celebrated their seventh birthday in February, and Karan marked the occasion with a heartfelt message. He wrote, “Happiest birthday to the brightest sunshines (x2) of my life! My life is forever changed for the best with you two coming into it with your goofy and adorable laughs, unadulterated sass towards ME and of course – an abundance of love to give to the world! Never change…grow up but never change.” He also expressed his gratitude to his mother, saying, “And thank you to my mom, who is forever the strength of our family…and being a mother figure to Yash & Roohi! Love you forever mom.”
Karan has often spoken about his feelings of loneliness due to the absence of a partner. He shared, “I have two children. Obviously, I’m co-parenting them with my mom (and) not with a partner. That means I have a single status. And that single status is filled with a lot of work. I pack in so much work during the day that I don’t think about that status. That’s what we all do when you’re single, you’re lonely, and you’re perhaps not wanting to address that loneliness. You pack your day with things to distract yourself from the core issue. Then you believe that if you have great friendships and a great family life, it can compensate for the lack of a passionate, intense romantic relationship. Nothing can replace that.”
He continued, “Life is full of boxes – parents fill one, children fill another, friends fill another. But there’s a box for an intense love romantic relationship that, if you don’t experience, there is a sense of incompleteness that nothing can ever fulfill. That loneliness can really consume you, and it has consumed me. I have not been in a relationship for many years. I know what that feels like. Fortunately, I can live vicariously through cinema. I can create those stories and characters that I would like to romantically be inclined with or just fulfill that part of love and romance in my life. Not everybody has that leverage.
