Father’s Day Special: Dad’s The Way…

Admit it. Cine-Ma is so called because it is obsessed with the mother figure.

Whether it is Nargis in Mother India or Nirupa Roy in Deewaar, Mama’s  a scenestealer while Dad is just a shadow. Does anyone remember Raj Kumar or Satyen Kappoo in Mother India and  Deewaar?Yet , there are films that have explored the Dad’s character with tender affection.

1. Aamir Khan in  Akele Hum Akele Tum: But you love me daddy, sang the  child actor(Master Adil)  to Aamir Khan.As a man suddenly thrust with the responsibility of looking after a little son after being abandoned by the lady of the family Aamir Khan was fabulously frazzled trying to get the eggs in the omelet and the buttons on the school uniform right. Though copied from a foreign source this Mansoor Ali Khan directed film was a rare instance of film that showed the father as the home maker.
2. Amitabh Bachchan in Sarkar: Ram Gopal Varma is not known to invest too much time or space into building emotions in his films. In tight close ups and clenched moments of  camaraderie Varma showed the bonding between the Big B and his son. The fact that the two actors were real-life father and son helped in giving a sharp focus to the relationship although very little was said between them.
3. Naseeruddin Shah in Masoom: He was a bad dad. He had abandoned his one-night-stand  girl after impregnating her. And now the child, as cute and vulnerable as a little puppy shows up at his doorstep. The father-son bonding scenes were  filled with a credible camaraderie. The sequence where father and son trek together to the sound of Tujhse naraaz nahin zindagi was remarkably resonant.
4. Anupam Kher in Daddy: Portraying  a wastrel of a father, drunk and unsuccessful and still getting your daughter to love you is not easy . Anupam managed to  draw a beautiful balance between  a man on the brink of self-destruction  and a father redeemed by his love for his daughter. It was a beautifully balanced-out act, and one that managed to furnish  dignity on the father’s character.
5. Mehmood in Kunwara Baap: As a rickshawallah who plays parent to an abandoned child Mehmood brought tears to millions of eyes. When he sang the  lullabye  Aa ri aa ja nindiya to his screen son there was not a dry eye in the theatre. Whether combing his son’s hair or kissing his forehead Mehmood out-Nirupa Roy-ed all the screen mothers.Mehmood’s real-life son played his son on this sleeper hit.
6. Salman Khan in Jab Pyar Kissise Hota Hai: He played a Casanova who sows his wild seats here there and everywhere. AdityaNarayan(singer Udit Narayan) shows up as Salman’s illegitimate son. Aditya gave Salman tit for tat in every scene.
7. Akshay Kumar in Jaanwar: This was a very special father-son film where Akshay proved he could act. Playing a ruffian who is reformed when a child pops into his life Akshay’s tears flowed freely for his screen son. In real life Akshay’s  father was terminally ill when he was playing father to little Aditya Kapadia on screen.
8. Aamir Khan in Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke: He played  papa to his  sister’s kids. There was pandemonium  as he tried to balance out the breakfast for the noisy demanding brood with a 9 to 5 job and a  fiancée who hated kids. Director Mahesh Bhatt showed the man going through what working women with family obligations have to go through all the time.
9. Anil Kapoor in Mr India: Again, a very interesting reversal of traditional nurturing roles. Kapoor cast as a father to a brood of adorable orphans while Sridevi played the working woman who had no patience with kids.
10. Shammi Kapoor in Bramhachari: The story of man who runs an orphanage and somehow earns enough to keep the kids well fed and clothed. The ‘yahoo’ Kapoor’s empathy with his screen children was superbly recreated in the kiddies having fun song Chakke pe chakka and the lullaby Main gaaon tum so jao. Shammi was also superb as a widower struggling to bring up his precocious little daughter in Ramesh Sippy’s Andaz.