Mahesh Bhatt’s Daddy Now a Play

Imran Zahid

In 1989, a young girl came of age in Bollywood, both in reel and real life. That’s how Mahesh Bhatt’s film Daddy is remembered by audiences of the era as well as critics — as a film that gave the industry Pooja Bhatt, who plays the protagonist (also called Pooja) fighting to cure her father of alcoholism. Daddy will now be adapted for the stage, with Delhi-based actor Imran Zahid playing the father, a role for which Anupam Kher won the National Award. The play follows a stage adaptation of another Bhatt classic, Arth — which is about a philandering man and the two women in his life — earlier this month. Daddy will be staged in Delhi on June 21 and 22, after which it travels to Mumbai.

“Amid the tsunami of images and sounds, I wanted to help keep the tradition of theatre alive,” says Mahesh over phone from Mumbai. He adds, “The story of a dysfunctional family and alcoholism is more relevant today than it was in the late ’80s when I made the film.” The search is on for an actor to play Pooja’s role but the decision to cast Zahid was made overnight. The actor says that Mahesh called him the morning after the show of Arth, to discuss Daddy. “He said that I had handled silences very well in Arth. It was one of the things I learnt in the play — that you can express volumes of emotions without uttering a word,” says Zahid. Daddy is replete with silences, ranging from the helplessness of a father who has almost lost his daughter, to the anxiety of a singer regaining his grip on music.