Pooja Bhatt’s 1989 hit ‘Daddy’ reinvented for stage

Karachi
Daddy, a theatrical play based on highly complicated relationships that afflict a family, was performed at the Napa auditorium on Tuesday by the Mahesh Bhatt group from India.
The play is adapted from the 1989 Bollywood film Daddy directed by Mahesh Bhatt. It was also actress Pooja Bhatt’s debut film.
The play is about a romance that turns sour and affects an individual till the end till providence proves his innocence and the much cherished tie of a father is reestablished. Finally like the age-old Subcontinent formula of a happy ending despite the continuous pathos in the story, all is well that ends well.
The heroine of the play is a young girl, Pooja. Then the play takes a flashback and shows young Pooja’s mother before her birth and her romance with a debonair young singer, Anand Sareen, astutely played by Nishant Thakur.
Sareen is already married. However he decides to divorce his wife. Nana (maternal grandfather), played by Danish Iqbal, insists that Sareen first divorce his wife and that he would not like his granddaughter to live as his mistress.
There are heated arguments between the two and Pooja’s mother carries Sareen’s baby. One day, as a result of a heated argument that arises because Pooja’s mother refuses to live like a mistress, she is assaulted by Sareen and soon after she dies in a mishap.
Young Pooja is brought up in care of her grandparents, being told by her Nana that her father killed her mother.
Meanwhile, years roll by and Sareen grows old and besides that, becomes an alcoholic. He tries his level best to come face to-face with his daughter, to begin with, making phone calls. Pooja, feeling that it is some prankster, just tells him off. However, one day he appears and tells her that he is her father.
Hostility between the father and daughter follows as she cannot tolerate a drunkard. The grandfather has verbal duels with Sareen.
Finally the Pooja’s courage breaks an evil spell and things take a turn abruptly for the better, till, in keeping with the regional tradition, there is the happily-ever-after situation.
While the play was gripping in its own way, one is apt to feel that it was too heavily loaded with pathos.
Another thing that might have struck the viewer was the Nana. He looked far too young to be a grandfather.
It was to some extent, a real-life drama. As Mahesh Bhatt confessed to the audience as a denouement, the old Anand Sareen could be said to represent him as he too was an incorrigible alcoholic once, but realising the futility of it all, and how he was not only ruining himself but also those around him, he made a firm resolve to kick the habit - and he really did, an abject lesson for the millions of alcoholics in our midst.