Mother's Day: Mere paas cine-maa hai

From the valiant mother in Mughal-e-Azam, who refuses to put the ceremonial vijay tilak on her emperor husband as he steps out to battle their son, to the melodramatic ma who rolls out "khujli-wali rotis" in 3 Idiots, on screen mothers have had their day in the sun in countless films. No surprises then that India's most promising entry to the Oscars was Mother India. Besides, can you imagine some of Bollywood's biggest blockbusters, such as Zanjeer, Deewar, Khoobsurat (1980), Ladla, Beta or Krissh without the mom factor?

Be it the boodhi maa, the andhi maa, the angry maa or the boisterous, feed-the-son-all-the-food-in-the-house maa, Bollywood has them all. As if this array of personalities wasn't enough, our scriptwriters' imagination supersedes their passion for the maa ke haath se bana gaajar ka halwa. This is when they go into overdrive, giving on screen mothers superpowers. In increasing order of sanity, here are our favourite Bollywood moms, who can put Superman to shame.

Dekho, dekho wo aa gaya
No. We aren't talking of the sultry Helen but the super sensory-powers-enabled mother from Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham. Picture this: mother Jaya Bachchan is performing an elaborate, big-budget prayer ceremony (song, dance and gigantic puja thalis included) and somewhere, (hopefully) far from the hall, a helicopter lands. Son-sensors-activated, Bachchan just knows that her son, Shah Rukh Khan's feet have touched the ground. Passion meets crescendo as an otherwise subtle Bachchan paces down the hallway and stands staring at the oh-so-flowy drapes at the entrance. For the slightest of moments, you wonder if the mother got it all wrong. But nah, dekho, dekho wo aa gaya. Much like a contraction, only the mother can tell, her child is arriving! Cue for songstress Lata Mangeshkar to begin crooning the film's signature K3G aalap, as mother and son hug it out.

The walking dead
K3G isn't the only movie in which Shah Rukh's on screen mom has special abilities. While revenge is a run-of-the-mill formula for Bollywood, Karan Arjun gave the genre a whole new meaning with its death-defying tale of maternal malfunction.
A humiliated widow, Raakhi, loses her sons over land issues to an evil villainous merchant. But can a mother be so easily undone? Will she give up hope that her sons will reappear even though they are dead? "Hahaha! Bewakoof aurat, mare hue wapas kaha se aayenge," laughs the cocky villain Amrish Puri. Beaten and bruised, Raakhi vehemently declares: "Zameen ki chaati phaadke aayenge, asman ka seena cheer ke aayenge, mere Karan Arjun aayenge."
As you grab a tissue to wipe away tears of disbelief, you too hope, that for Karan, Arjun to rise from the dead, which indeed they do!

(Endangered) tiger to the rescue
The stripped specie may be endangered but in Amitabh Bachchan's Mard, his pet (yes, pet) tiger, saves the day. Goons capture the ever-so-unfortunate screen mom Nirupa Roy. And then bam, a faithful tiger leaps into the scene when you least expect it. The striped beast kills armed goons in a matter of seconds. Now, wait a minute, his job here ain't done yet. He uses his extra agile canines to tug at Roy's extra long pallu to escort — or was it drag — the mother across vales, valleys and rivers to unite her with her son. It makes you wonder if Roy, a human mother, had no idea about where and how to reach her own son! Adding flair to the pet tiger's personality, the cat even exchanges goodbyes-namastes while parting.

Hissss....
If you thought a tiger saving a human was stretching the imagination beyond what is expected of the animal kingdom, then brace for this one. In the 1990 flick Doodh ka karz (actual name of a movie), Aruna Irani plays the single mom who has to raise a whining toddler by herself. But that's not the end of her parental duties. It seems a cobra, whom her husband apparently raised as a 'son' too has nutritive needs. As Irani silences her toddler by breastfeeding him, the snake looks on. Overcome by inexplicable maternal instincts, and presumable moved by the bhookha beta expression that the cobra pulls off, Irani declares that the hungry son-like cobra too must be fed! And very nonchalantly, she reaches out for a cup-shaped dish and offers milk to the snake. As the title song reaches a crescendo in the background, you know the cobra will repay the lactic loan, someday!