First a confession: I was a tad scared of Auro. With his egg shaped head,glassy eyes and broken teeth,he looked alien and unfamiliar. I saw ‘hero-of-my-nightmare- potential’ in him. So as you can gauge,I went in to watch Paa with much trepidation.
I was also skeptical of the casting. I thought director Balki had surely lost the plot in his quest for unfamiliar terrain. I mean,come on,how can Amitabh Bachchan — the most recognised face of Indian cinema — convincingly portray a 12-year-old trapped in an 80-year-old man’s body? The whole appeal of The Bachchan lies in that voice and that face and those mannerisms. And so for a director to unmask all things Bachchan was in my opinion,an exercise just to be different.
Undoubtedly Auro hits it out of the park but for me Paa is all about the Maa. Though pitched as a father-son story,Paa actually works best as a mother-son film. Vidya Balan is wonderfully understated and graceful in her portrayal as a single woman bringing up a kid with a life threatening medical defect. In fact,she and Arundhati Nag (as the endearingly warm Bum) form the emotional center of the film.
Paa is noteworthy that after a long time,there are strong female roles in a mainstream movie. The women in Paa don’t just mouth flowery lines rather they have a point of view. Be it Vidya’s decision to have a child out of wedlock or Arundhati’s support to her daughter,director Balki gives his women players a voice.
Relationships seem to be Balki’s specialty. In his directorial debut,Cheeni Kum also,he etched out fine banter between Bachchan and his gym loving mom Zohra Sehgal as well as with the wise old kid,Sexy. In Paa,he strikes a warm and tender bond between Auro,his Bum and mum.
That’s a bond that touches your heart,more that Auro and his Paa.
