Recently I rushed to see an Amitabh Bachchan - starrer Hindi film Paa, just in time before it was removed from the theatres. Reading about its theme, which is about a child suffering from a rare medical condition known as Progeria, which accelerates the aging process of a child resulting in grey hair, baldness, wrinkled skin and stooping posture, I decided long back to see the film when it came to the theatres in city.

My desire was further accentuated after seeing the promotional reviews aired on TV. Imagine a 12 – year - old boy looking like an 80 – year - old man and imagine our 65 – year - old Amitabh Bachchan playing the role.

Indeed, Amitabh has delivered a sterling performance as he always does.

Remember the film “Black” where he gave a memorable performance. Imagine what a great loss it could have been to Bollywood if Amitabh Bachchan had died decades ago in the near fatal accident during the shooting of the film “Coolie” in Bangalore. I found the film Paa engaging right through, except for the songs. For once, you have a rare kind of a politician being depicted in Abhishek Bachchan as the father of the Progeria child — straightforward, honest, kind, compassionate, understanding, not only as a Member of the Parliament but also with the girl whom he loved while in college.

He has sex with a medical student who becomes pregnant. As he wants to become a politician like his father, he was not ready to marry immediately, therefore he suggests an abortion. But she refuses and decides to remain an unwed mother. She works as a gynaecologist and also brings up her son who she discovers, before long, suffers from this rare kind of genetic disorder. However, both she and her lover Amol, played by Abhishek Bachchan, go about their own ways without any further relationship, till such time by chance Amol meets his son Auro (played by Amitabh Bachchan) and decides to accept Auro as his son and also his mother, Vidya, played by Vidya Balan.

This is an unlikely conduct on the part of our present day politicians. Probably for the first time in Indian cinema, a politician is portrayed as a good and honest person deserving our admiration.

Vidya's mother, our own Arundhati Nag, has given a very matured performance portraying the character in a way one would feel that she could be anybody’s mother.

Auro, who learns of the word “bastard” and its meaning by overhearing the conversation of his fellow students, realises that he too belongs to that class of a child as he had not seen his father nor heard of him.

However, after several twists and turns, he learns that the politician Amol Atray (Abhishek) is his father and his happiness knows no bounds. He was worried about his mother and father not coming together despite the father’s readiness. But then, all is well that ends well. Auro in deathbed scores a victory in his death.

And as I watched the last part of the film, I couldn't hold back my tears and I allowed them to flow copiously. After all, in the darkness of the theatre my saline emotion was not visible. The only problem was my running nose which betrayed my emotion to those sitting next to me. As I left the theatre I was also left wondering why the film was not titled Maa rather than Paa.

By K. B. Ganapathy
Courtesy: Star of Mysore