Our fathers, who art in Bollywood

He may be late to the party, but a more rounded and credible father figure is finally emerging in Hindi cinema

The caring, affectionate father is such a rarity on screen that when you do spot one, you do a double-take. Did I see it right or is there a catch, I wondered while watching Panga. The bar is set so low for a father that actor Jassi Gill’s ever smiling, gentle, empathetic Prashant anchors the film just as much as Kangana Ranaut’s meticulously played Jaya.

After several years of prioritising their son Adi’s well-being, Jaya decides to go back to kabaddi while her husband Prashant takes over as the primary parent. This is easier said than done because although Prashant has a deep, playful bond and an easy camaraderie with their son, his housekeeping and cooking skills are questionable. But he steps up nevertheless, with some help from his mother-in-law. About the writing of Prashant’s character, director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari has said in interviews that she thought it was time to show progressive men who acknowledge this “era of coexistence”.

While motherhood has been closely and frequently deconstructed in Hindi films, there haven’t been nearly as many nuanced explorations of fatherhood, or even glimpses of its complexity, outside the realm of the breadwinner or keeper of family honour. And so we have routinely seen fathers who are villain-like: conservative, authoritarian, violent and woefully one-note. The overarching patriarch has, in film after film, represented the conflict between the new and old in Indian society, standing as a larger-than-life obstacle between tradition and modernity.

Upright, upper-class

It has been 25 years since Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ), and it’s still hard to shake off the series of resounding slaps that Baldev Singh (Amrish Puri) delivers to Raj (Shah Rukh Khan) for daring to fall in love with his daughter Simran (Kajol). Warring, murderous fathers in Hindi movies of the 80s and 90s were as common as sacrificing, weepy mothers; the father’s primary role was to stand in the way of their offspring’s happiness — albeit often with a miraculous change of heart by the end of the film. Then there is the slightly better template of the morally upright, good-at-heart father. In the book Hero, Ashok Raj notes Amitabh Bachchan’s long run as “an upright, upper-class, omnipotent patriarch, who exercises his complete authority most of the time.”

When on-screen fathers are compelled by circumstances to become the primary caregiver, a few memorable characters emerge. An earnest Ramlal (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) in Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar works hard to keep the kitchen fires burning. Musician Rohit (Aamir Khan) quickly hones his parenting skills in Akele Hum Akele Tum (based on Kramer vs. Kramer) when his wife and fellow singer Kiran (Manisha Koirala) leaves him. The guilt of leaving her son behind eats away at Kiran, however, in a way it might not affect most fathers. In a letter to her young son, Kiran explains: “Sometimes fathers go to work and mothers take care of the home, but sometimes mothers go to work and fathers take care of the home”. By the end of the film, Rohit has fully embraced fatherhood.

Not the greatest

By the mid-90s, we got ‘daddy cool’ — the fun-loving, occasionally irresponsible breed — often written in as comic relief. Anupam Kher’s memorable role as a sympathetic, supportive father in DDLJ was the perfect foil to Puri’s bombastic Baldev. Saif Ali Khan in his most recent film Jawaani Jaaneman mines the party-boy forced to re-examine his ways as he wakes up — rather late — to his responsibility as not just a ‘papa’ but also a to-be grandpa. In Paa, Abhishek Bachchan’s sensitive Amol is also late to the party, but eventually gives off a warm paternal vibe.

In the web series The Family Man, Manoj Bajpayee’s Srikant Tiwari plays a colourful father. “He is not the greatest husband or father... He can’t give much time to his family and even teaches his kids to lie,” as his creators Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. said in an interview, but he is, nevertheless, a father who is both invested in, and exasperated, by his pair of children who often turn out to be a step ahead of him.

One of the quieter, more moving fatherly roles was Naseeruddin Shah’s Lalit Verma in Monsoon Wedding. It’s not often that we see this pure male parental pain and protective love that’s not wrapped up in layers of machismo. He is no hero; he struggles to make sense of his son’s love for cooking and dancing over cricket. But his love is immense. “These are my children, praji, I will protect them from even myself, if I have to...” he tells his older brother-in-law.

But it is eventually a character like Prashant that demands more from a father figure than we usually get: not a perfect parent by any account, but one who thinks beyond tired ideas of manhood. And so we get a man who feels authentic, with a real personality.

In the trailer of the upcoming social comedy about gay love, Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhaan, when the mother (Neena Gupta) tells her husband (Gajraj Rao), “Haan, banoongi mein Mother India, ma ke paas dil hota hai,” (‘Yes I will be Mother India, mothers have hearts’) he shoots back sarcastically, “Haan, baap toh battery se chaltein hain!” (‘Yeah, and fathers run on batteries’) And that’s the difference. Bollywood baaps are beginning to grow a heart.

The freelance journalist is a lover of cakes, chai, bookshops and yarns.