Why Amitabh makes a saleable father figure

A series of prominent films beginning with Honey Irani's Armaan, due in May 2003, celebrate the father-son relationship.

In Irani's film, Amitabh Bachchan plays a doctor who passes on his unfulfilled dream of building a hospital for the poor and needy to his son, played by Anil Kapoor. All the characters and their crises revolve around the Bachchan-Kapoor relationship.

In Ravi Chopra's forthcoming Bhaagban, Bachchan and his screen son Salman Khan share a precious pivotal camaraderie.

Recently, Anil Kapoor was on the other side of the parental line when he played a father fighting to win back his son from his estranged wife in Indra Kumar's Rishtey.

Says Kapoor, "If you look at Rishtey closely, it reversed the parenting protocol in our films by making the father the nurturing element in the offspring's life. I did everything for my son in Rishtey that, say, Nargis did in Mother India or Shabana Azmi in Bhavna -- sing lullabies, feed and dress him up for school."

Akshay Kumar had similarly 'mothered' his screen son in Suneel Darshan's Jaanwar three years ago. "At the time, my own father was terminally ill, and what I felt for the boy in Jaanwar was indescribable."

One of south India's most accomplished cinematographer-directors Rajeev Menon is all set to make his first Hindi film. If Menon had his way, he would cast real-life father and son Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan as central characters. In the past, Amitabh Bachchan has played his own son in double roles in Aakhri Raasta and Sooryavansham.

Bengal's most accomplished filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh is also set to launch himself into the national market with a Hindi film about a father and a son. Ghosh has already

approached Amitabh Bachchan to play the patriarch.

What's it about the theme that has suddenly found such favour? Suneel Darshan, who made Ek Rishta -- The Bond Of Love about the father and son bonding with Bachchan and Akshay Kumar, thinks the trend reverses the age-old mother-son formula in Hindi films. "In how many films and in how many ways can we show the hero's single-minded devotion to his mother? The father figure, for long neglected, is finally finding favour in our cinema. I think it is a heartening sign."

One of the first films to go into the theme with some seriousness and sensitivity was Shekhar Kapur's Masoom, where Naseeruddin Shah discovered the joys of parenting after his illegitimate son landed up at his doorstep. In David Dhawan's Swarg and Mohan Kumar's Avatar, the family orphan Govinda and Sachin's relationship with tycoon Rajesh Khanna framed the main drama.

Thereafter, the mother occupied the forefront while the father stepped out of the shadows once in a while, as in Dev Anand's Anand Aur Anand, where the filmmaker cast his son Suniel as his own son.

But the ultimate father-son fable was Ramesh Sippy's Shakti, which pitted Dilip Kumar against Amitabh Bachchan in a riveting jugalbandi of generational conflict.

Mansoor Khan's Akele Hum Akele Tum, a remake of the Hollywood film Kramer Versus Kramer, also depicted single-parent Aamir Khan's relationship with his young son, as did Mahesh Manjrekar in Ehsaas two years ago. Ehsaas was the last film to delve into the father-son relationship at the cost of other more cinematically useful human relationships.

Now, with India's most saleable megastar entering his 60s, Bollywood filmmakers are keen to devise dramas that cast Bachchan in the pivotal role. The father figure has benefited largely from the star's seasoned stature.