Maa

Mothers are a resilient lot. Harm their kids, then be ready for a battle. In Maa, Kajol’s maternal instincts face their toughest test as she contends with superstitions as well as a girl child-feasting, tree-residing monster who has eyes on her adolescent daughter. Kajol’s Ambika is an ordinary woman trapped in extraordinary circumstances, but then the film’s title isn’t just a nod to her but also to the powerful and dangerous deity who should not be messed with—Kali Maa. Mining India’s mythology and religious beliefs to craft a horror that’s contemporarily relevant is a nifty idea that’s been attempted before, but to do so frighteningly well is another thing altogether. Maa takes the tried and tested not-without-my-daughter formula and spins it round and round until audiences are left frustrated at the actions of characters.

Do not mess with a mother. She can go to any extent to save her family. Mixing mythology and technology, ‘Maa’ presents Kajol as a contemporary woman fighting with all her might to keep at bay the dark forces targeting her young daughter. Ambika (Kajol) and Shuvankar (Indraneil Sengupta) have succeeded in keeping his family’s troubled history from the artistically-inclined Shweta (Kherin Sharma). But the 12-year-old’s constant curiosity coupled with a tragic incident leads the mother and daughter to travel to their ancestral haveli in Chandrapur in the Bengal countryside, where time seems to have come to a stand-still.

Everything about Vishal Furia’s Maa is about the optics. The film is touted as mytho-horror, a shorthand of mythological horror, which has existed before. Aditya Sarpotdar’s Munjya (2024) is an example, yet Maa spells it out like the film is a product undergoing rebranding by a new CEO. Again, given the title, the end credits feature names of the makers and producers with their mothers’ names pencilled in the middle. Even for a persuasive film, this is too much posturing, and Maa is far from it. Hindi cinema has reached a point where the success of a genre should frighten us. The moment something works, ten similar projects are lined up, and this does not consider the sequels of the patient zero. Furia’s Maa is an upshot of this; it belongs in the same world as Shaitaan (2024) and exists because of the latter’s success.

After every few years, we have a female star taking on the role of a doting mother who morphs into a saviour of her child and family. It is a time-tested Bollywood formula for the heroine who is losing her space under the spotlight to play her age and yet remain central to the story. The template remains the same, but the public sentiment associated with the mother figure is such that the melodrama keeps getting recycled. From Jaya Prada in Maa to Sridevi in Mom and Raveena Tandon in Maatr, the mother magic has worked for several actors. This week, it is Kajol’s turn to take the mantle and remind the public that, given the opportunity, she can drive a narrative. While her male contemporaries are still romancing young girls, she has already played a couple of compelling mummy variants in Helicopter Eela and Salaam Venky.

जब बच्चे पर आंच आती है, तो एक मां चंडी बन जाती है, इस विषय पर श्रीदेवी की ‘मॉम’ से लेकर रवीना टंडन की ‘मातृ’ जैसी फिल्में आ चुकी हैं, वहीं अब काजोल अपनी नई फिल्म ‘मां’ में भी ममत्व के इसी रूप को पर्दे पर उतार रही हैं। अंतर यह है कि ‘मॉम’ और ‘मातृ’ जहां रिवेंज ड्रामा थीं, ‘मां’ हॉरर जॉनर की फिल्म है, जिसमें एक मां अपनी बच्ची को दोइत्तो यानी राक्षस के चंगुल से बचाने के लिए एड़ी-चोटी का जोर लगा देती है। कहानी कोलकाता के चंदरपुर से शुरू होती है, जहां मां काली की पूजा के बीच एक मां प्रसव पीड़ा से गुजर रही होती है। माहौल में टेंशन है, क्योंकि इस परिवार में जन्मी बेटियों को जंगल ले जाकर दोइत्तो (राक्षस) के सामने कुर्बानी देने की प्रथा है। इसलिए, उस दिन जन्मी बच्ची भी कुर्बान हो जाती है, जबकि उसका जुड़वा भाई शुभांकर (इंद्रनील सेनगुप्ता) इस खूनी रिवाज मानने वाले अपने पुरखों और गांव से दूर शहर जाकर पत्नी अंबिका (काजोल) और बेटी श्वेता (केरिन शर्मा) के साथ खुशहाल जिंदगी बिता रहा होता है। 12 वर्षीय श्वेता का गांव जाने का बहुत मन होता है, पर शुभांकर उसे उस जगह की परछाई से भी दूर रखता है। यहां तक कि पिता के गुजरने पर भी वह अकेला गांव जाता है।