By Avantika
Mumbai, May 14, I heard someone saying, the two things that any and every Indian hold closest to their hearts are Maa, and Cinema. It’s only obviously that the compound of the two has to be magical. Mothers have been painted in many colors on the India silver screen.
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While we are still basking in the celebration that in Mother’s day, let’s remind us that this is 2017 and our moms aren’t really the hapless wallowing ilk. They can be as badass as one needs to be, just like these representations.
It will be a crime if we started our list without paying homage to this very bold portrayal of a young mother widowed and left with two children wrapped around her waist in her early twenties. The movie surrounds a mother of meagre resources invested in raising her sons, one of whom grows up to be everything south of her values and morals. In the moment of epic complexities ensued by life, Radha doesn’t shy away from taking down her son either.
The movie with Rakhi’s character and dialogue “Mere Karan Arjun ayenge” has gone down in the history of Indian cinema as a cult. That an ageing women who witnessed the death of two sons, doesn’t give up on life, instead faces the assassins with fire in her eyes and belief in her heart that her sons would return from death to avenge themselves some confidence for sure.
The 1999 thriller allowed Reema Lagoo to walk the path paved by Nargis decades ago. Usually seen essaying the loving and doting mother in movies like Saajan and KKHH, she pulled the trigger on Sanjay Dutt, when the son much loved, but gone astray, had to be brought back.
Though we see Dhankor Baa in a negative shade, we can’t deny it needs talent and valor of a special kind to be the Matriarch in a primitive and rural society infested by crude patriarchy. So, lets give it us for Supriya Pathak in this masterpiece by Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
A movie circling the rape and death of a 10 year old, is a tight slap on our society because it unearths the kind of truth we want to but cannot deny. An archetypical middle class mother dons some “provoking” to hunt down her dead daughter’s assaulters is depicted by Raveena Tandon and no one else could have done it better.
An NRI mother trapped among in-laws in the rurals of India after her husband dies moves us to the very core. But Karisma didn’t play the ‘weak woman’ card. Her fights to free her child and herself from the claws of an almost anti-socialist father-in-law will stop your heartbeat many times.
Its worth praising that Bollywood is taking chances and celebrating the unmarried mother. Dr. Vidya is shown raising Auro, who suffers from an extreme genetic disorder, Progeria, without caring one bit about social prejudices.
It was pleasant to know that Aishwarya had chosen the professional regalia instead of a gaudy lehenga choli to make U turn to acting. An ace lawyer who did everything within her power to salvage her kidnap daughter and defending a criminal for the very reason, the Advocate Anuradha Verma illustrated how strong a mother can be in this day and age.
Two mothers at it against each other, but we cannot choose whom to side with. Sorry for the spoiler, but turns out it was in fact the very homely Garima Chowdhury who had abducted the child. Why? Go watch the movie. A mother’s revenge, the design to burn the rapist of her daughter alive and bringing the culprit to justice – we cannot go against any of it.
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(This story has not been edited by BDC staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed from IANS.)
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