R Balki and Akshay Kumar
R Balki's films have always given fans food for thought long after leaving the movie halls. And his biopic drama Pad Man, inspired by the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham is no different! Today, as the film completes four successful years of release, we take a look back at what made the film the massive success it is!
- R Balki's clean storytelling: R Balki's school of filmmaking has involves great cinema with a message. With his realistic and raw form of storytelling in Pad Man, the filmmaker gave us some serious food for thought and sparked conversations across Indian households.
- Spectacular performances: Pad Man features some convincing performances by Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor and Radhika Apte. The star cast wears the face of their characters throughout the film and gives us a great show!
- Arunachalam Muruganantham's story: Inspired by the social entrepreneur's real life story, Pad Man brings alive Muruganantham's struggles and process of inventing low-cost sanitary napkins. Pad Man gave us a realistic superhero who confronts ground reality concerns like scarcity of affordable sanitary napkins, especially in rural India.
- Degstimatising menstruation: In the film, Radhika Apte's dialogues, "Hum aurton ke liye, bimari se marna, sharam ke sath jeene se zada behtar hai", sums up the intensity of the taboo surrounding menstruation in Indian society. The film highlights the urgency of getting rid of this mentality and taboo.
- Empowering women: "Stronger women make a stronger country", a dialogue said by Akshay Kumar in the movie is a beacon of hope and has a very strong message. Pad Man sees the actor schooling a group of people around how women empowerment is necessary for a better country. All in all, the movie makes us believe that there is still hope for women in our country!
On the film's four-year anniversary, filmmaker R Balki walked down the memory lane and spoke about why the film was an important one for him. He said, "It was an important film and ode to one of the most creative minds, Muruganantham, who went about breaking this taboo of menstruation-related issues. The film furthered his cause and made it an acceptable family conversation - a huge task in even the developed countries! For me, Pad Man is the most important film I have made so far! In the film, Akshay Kumar was at his best and lived the role. A 13-minute monologue with fluctuating emotions in one take! Very few actors have done that in cinema! Truly a performance that touched me even as we were filming it!"
