How Amitabh Bachchan Turned Patriarchs into Daddy Cool

Few acting icons have been able to outwit the challenge of ageing. Most accept that their brilliance will be limited to their youth and as they grow older, their younger self will remain frozen in memory and celluloid while in the present, they retreat away from the limelight. Not so for Amitabh Bachchan. He’s one of the few stars of Hindi cinema who has maintained his on-screen prominence even as he aged out of the conventional definition of a hero. Indian cinema’s favourite "Angry Young Man" embraced the mantle of fatherhood for the first time in Kabhie Kabhie (1976). He’d subsequently play father and son in films like Desh Premee (1982), Aakhree Raasta (1986), Sooryavansham (1999), Lal Badshah (1999), and Mahaan (1983), unwittingly preparing his adoring audiences to see him graduate to the role of an elder.  

In the last 20 years, Bachchan’s roles have made him the father figure for more than one generation. On his birthday, we take a moment to pay our respects to the actor who has only grown in stature for the way he’s redefined the patriarch in mainstream Hindi cinema and our imaginations. 

Honour, Tradition, Discipline, and Fear

"Pratishta, parampara, anushasan" (honour, tradition, and discipline) —  three words that will immediately bring to mind Bachchan’s distinctive baritone and make you sit up straighter. In Mohabbatein (2000), Bachchan's role did not have a lot of screen-time, but the impact was monumental. As Narayan Shankar, the formidable head of the Gurukul where discipline reigns supreme, Bachchan plays a man averse to love and romance, holding them responsible for the death of his beloved daughter. 

The institution he runs is effectively a fortress and anyone who is tempted by emotional distractions lives in terror of being schooled by Narayan Shankar. (That is, arguably, all the schooling happening at Gurukul where students pay about as much attention to academics as politicians do to global warming, but let us not digress.) "Mohobbat aur darr ki jung mein jeet humesha darr ki hogi (In the battle between love and fear, fear will always be victorious),” asserts the school’s principal with conviction and it takes a moment for even Shah Rukh Khan to deliver a comeback. 

Bachchan brought a grandeur to Narayan Shankar, marbling the older man’s unyielding strength with vulnerability and grief. His is the tragedy of a father who has outlived their child and he will not forgive the world that has forced him into this terrible position. On paper, Khan as Raj sweeps change into Narayan Shankar’s world and this should have made for an easy binary in which the audience roots for Raj over Bachchan’s Narayan Shankar. However, Bachchan commanded audience sympathy, much like he did as Yashvardhan Raichand in Kabhi Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham…(K3G, 2001).  

The film saw him paired with Khan again, this time playing his son. Yashvardhan’s iconic line is, “Keh diya na, bas keh diya (If I’ve said it, it’s done),” which his real-life partner Jaya Bachchan (who played a submissive wife in K3G) would repeat in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani (2023). The proclamation of patriarchal authority emphasises the father's unequivocal authority and the restrictive nature of that power. We should not like this proud, narrow-minded man who cannot look beyond the financial worth of a person, who refuses to allow his adult son agency, and who clearly locates his self-worth in a hierarchy that lets him occupy the top spot. Yet when he finally breaks down, there’s no sense of victory and instead, all of us were weeping along with Khan, heartbroken to see Yashvardhan crumple.  

The unreasonable patriarch is a reality for many who watch Hindi cinema and in Bachchan’s portrayal of characters like Narayan Shankar and Yashvardhan Raichand is a representation of tradition and convention at its most photogenic. It’s a depiction that shows constancy during change and suggests that lurking under the fear, which an overbearing father wields like a weapon, is his own vulnerability. Bachchan’s portrayal of these men holds out the hope that the patriarch can be made to change, just a little. He’d play a similar character in Baghban (2003), but in this film his Raj Malhotra is broken by circumstance and melodrama. Father to a set of ungrateful children who go out of their way to make their parents miserable, the film turned the tables on the standard formula in which domineering parental figures separate young lovers. In Baghban, the young ones are unreasonable and cruel, and the couple is an older pair — played by Hema Malini and Bachchan — who must navigate obstacles to being together. Left to its own devices, Baghban is barely a film with its incoherent plot, but a lot of its success has to be attributed to Bachchan’s committed performance which evoked a frenzy of empathy among audiences (and critics) for the older generation.

The Evolution of Daddy Cool

Bachchan has also played a more laid-back dad, one who doesn’t pay heed to tradition and instead is responsive to changing times and needs. In Waqt (2005), he’s the “Daddy Cool” who spoils his child rotten, but then forces his irresponsible ward to change. His methods may raise eyebrows — removing the fuse from the fan, for instance — but the intentions are undeniably noble. In Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (KANK, 2006), Bachchan played “Sexy Sam” who has a starkly different relationship with this son than Yashvardhan. 

Sam and his son (played by Bachchan’s real-life son, Abhishek Bachchan) share a relationship based on friendship rather than fear, which made for a refreshing makeover to the image of the patriarch. Sam also turns out to be the cool-dad-she-never-had for his daughter-in-law (played by Rani Mukerji). On his deathbed, Sam delivers a line that is not just worthy of a mic drop, but also feels like a comment on the way paternal authority is conventionally imagined: "Baap hu, beta. Saza nahi, salah de sakta hu (I'm a father. I can't punish you, I can only offer advice).” Most father figures, in cinema and life, tend to mete out more punishments than advice, often packaging one with the other. 

As Bhashkor the curmudgeon in Piku (2015), Bachchan had a chance to bring out his comedic skills, and the result was a delight. He also had a fantastic dynamic with his co-stars, Deepika Padukone and Irrfan, and he was the father that everyone wanted for themselves, even if Bhashkor makes Piku want to tear her hair out. Bhashkor, with his hypochondria and anxieties, is cranky, adorable and one of those rare characters who makes being old look cool precisely because he’s unbothered about being cool. Unreasonably stubborn and combative at times, Bhashkor is a reminder that the monumental rigidity of patriarchs like Yashvardhan can be softened with age into the absurdity that makes Bhashkor hilarious. Yet in the unspoken details, like the way he loves his daughter just as she is and ultimately respects her decisions, Bashkor is an unusual patriarch because he is happy to yield. The actor wove moments of vulnerability and pain into the comedy, like when Bhashkor says, "Tum log sochta hai ki hum tumhare upar burden hai. Ami nahi burden. Hum sab apne aap kar sakta hai… (You think I’m a burden? I’m not. I can do everything for myself). I am fit, not dependent on anybody." It’s heartbreaking because Bhashkor is clearly not fit and worries that he’s a burden on Piku.

In these three films, Bachchan’s character has to die, almost as though it’s difficult even for the imaginary world of Bollywood to conceive of an Indian family in which two men (and women) can share authority respectfully and amicably. However, the mentorship of Bachchan as father figure persists, shaping those he leaves behind. He stands as the original and eternal guardian, looking out for future generations.

Over the past two decades, Bachchan has masterfully turned the father character that was at best a minor supporting role for an ageing actor into a central one that commands the spotlight. The fathers he’s played act like mirrors reflecting our relationship with parents, the idea of authority and the complexities of finding a power balance between elders and contemporaries. He’s reminded audiences that fathers are more than forbidding figures and can also be multifaceted, complex, fully-realised individuals. Through his performances, he has allowed us to empathise with these sometimes exasperating, often endearing, older men whom he’s brought closer to the next generation.