Pad Man — The Five-day wonder

It is a difficult and uncomfortable subject to make a film on, that too a full length feature, and even if you are above the stigma situation escorting the good old pad stuck in the nether part of a woman’s anatomy, it still makes you a bit shifty to see it on the big, bold screen.

So, the film on a sanitary napkin maker is not an everyday kind of film to make and in that context, Akshay Kumar’s latest in issue-raising cinema is laudable. So, is the real link to the story which encases the extraordinary journey of Arunachalam Muruganantham who was shunned by one and all — even his wife — for his obsession to make an affordable and hygienic sanitary napkin (and a sanitary napkin making machine) for primarily rural women.

Akshay, who obviously plays Muruganantham, is brilliant and the focal point of a film more on the man than his obsession. Emerging unscathed from the toilet to directly venture into the mahavari stigma was a courageous step for the actor who looks like paving his way to Parliament with such ones.

Muruganantham’s story is inspiring, amazing and singularly focussed on the biggest and most ignored problem of hygiene around menstruation mores that have brought down many an Indian woman by not just social taboo but her own sense of shame about periods. The film shows that amply through Radhika Apte who plays Akshay’s wife and one of his severest critics.

The reality bites around the entire show emanating from a village which looks to be in some part of UP are what keeps the film going and it was heartening to hear the men in the cinema hall not just being there to see the film but also applauding loudly to dialogues and situations that the film throws up, including the booing of the scornful five-day Test match reference to menstruation by men in the film.

However, the monotony of the subject, or should we say one man’s obsession, gets to you after some time and that;s when the film starts dragging. But kudos to Akshay for holding in the raw moments and mentoring a climax with a beautiful speech in the United Nations which shows how simple, earnest and commissioned Muruganantham actually it.

Apte is good in what she does in the film but the cool cat is Sonam Kapoor with her bindaas attitude and round glasses. Of course, she is the fiction introduced to the real tale but she does leave an impact on the proceedings.

All in all an issue that needed to be thrown up.

Source: Published in Sunday Pioneer, 11 February, 2018