Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan
Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan
Film Paa originated on the sets of Cheeni Kum, when director Balki inspired by an interesting conversation between the Bachchan father-son duo. The unusual thing about the film is that it casts Amitabh as Abhishek’s son in the film.
The real life father-son duo plays the exact opposite characters in Balki’s forthcoming film Paa. The idea came to the director’s mind when he listened to the real life conversation between Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan.
Talking about the unconventional script, Balki said, “One day during the shooting of Cheeni Kum, when I was discussing scenes with Amitji, Abhishek walked in. That’s when I saw Abhishek, who’s known as the brat, having a serious conversation with his father. In fact, at that moment, he came across as the more mature of the two. And I thought why not explore their relationship in that light? That’s how the role reversal happened.”
At the time the director was not aware about progeria, which is a congenital abnormality which shows premature and rapid aging of a person.
“I only knew a son of a friend whose hormones were developing faster than normal. That friend put me on to a doctor who deals with child-growth issues. He told me about progeria,” said the director.
This little information made the director to use as basis for his movie and so he began his research in that way. Balki said, “I found out about this family in Kolkata where four of the children suffered from progeria. I then contacted the Progeria Research Foundation, who provided a lot of matter. It happens in one out of eight million cases. But finally I decided not to do a fully authentic representation of the ailment. We’ve resorted to a lot of artistic licence.”
Amitabh who is playing the role of the victim of rapid-aging disease in the film has shown as tall as he is in real life, which is not a real case with the progeria patients.
Balki explained, “Normally, a progeria patient can’t be that tall. So Paa is not a hundred per cent authentic representation of the disease. It’s more an emotional father-son story with the ailment as a backdrop. I haven’t gone into details of the disease.”