4 min readMumbaiJun 21, 2013 01:29 PM IST
From the busy-at-work dads,seldom seen with their kids sort of culture,Bollywood’s daddy brigade is giving the yummy mummies quite a run for their money
Father’s Day just went past and from the coverage in the papers,the coveted position that Mother’s Day has occupied so far,is under siege. Marketing whiz kids,after having run out of days to celebrate womanhood have clearly found a new demographic to celebrate—men in general and the unsung heroes-fathers,in particular. Interestingly,the leitmotif of unconditional love in Hindi films has always been the mother,the gloriously celebrated Maa.
Fathers on the other hand have often been given the short end of the stick— often symptomatic of troubled relationships with their progenies especially sons.
Be it Prithviraj Kapoor in his inimitable turn as the unrelenting Akbar to Dilip Kumar’s rebellious prince in Mughal-e-Azam or Dilip Kumar as the duty-bound cop who earns his son’s (Amitabh Bachchan) lifelong resentment in Shakti,on-screen fathers for most part,have symbolised the clash of alpha egos. Goods news is that over years with the changing order,the patriarch too,has evolved. From the forbidding dutybound pater,who seemed distant and inscrutable,or deliriously doting—this only in the case of daughters—fathers in the movies have undergone something of a makeover in the last decade or so.
In their modern,new age avatar,they are friendlier,working rather hard at blurring the generation gap. Recall Sexy Sam from Kabhie Alvida Na Kehna or Anupam Kher in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge? Shekhar Kapur’s Masoom starring Naseeruddin Shah was among the early films that showed us a sensitive side to dads and a few memorable ones like Paa (starring Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan) have followed ever since.
Life off-screen too is not very different. From the busy-at-work dads,seldom seen with their kids sort of culture,Bollywood’s daddy brigade is giving the yummy mummies quite a run for their money,proudly flaunting their young ’uns at public dos,buying cricket teams or even picking film subjects as per suggestions from their kids! This is a far cry from days of yore when the biggest PDA from Bollywood dads was launching their kids (sons primarily) in glitzy home productions.
Sample this: Aamir Khan has been making time for baby Azad along with Ira and Junaid,much through his busy schedules while Shah Rukh Khan,a doting daddy to boot,was keen that his IPL team win the trophy as his kids would love it,he even made a superhero film much to their delight and bought stakes in Kidzania,a Mexico based edutainment park.
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But there’s more: Abhishek Bachchan,Akshay Kumar and Arjun Rampal or Hrithik Roshan,Farhan Akhtar and Saif Ali Khan with their demonstrative and approachable demeanour,are fast turning into poster-boys for cool dads both within the films and outside.
The older generation is not too far behind in making up for lost time. Big B has always been quite the model father figure — Jeetendra is often involved with both Ekta and Tusshar,Anil Kapoor is juggling the roles of best buds and protective father with great ease while Govinda,Jackie Shroff and Suniel Shetty are encouraging and supportive to their children awaiting their turn for a shot at showbiz sweepstakes.
Role reversal indeed.
