MID-DAY (December 15, 2017)

At the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa recently, Akshay Kumar had quipped, “America has Batman, Superman, Spiderman. India has ‘Angry Young Man’,” referring to actor Amitabh Bachchan. It’s interesting that the trailer of Akshay’s latest film, in turn, opens with Big B’s voiceover referring again to the American superheroes, except he says that India has in fact “Pad Man”.

That twist apart, the trailer of R Balki’s Pad Man, produced by Twinkle Khanna, which drops online today, takes some fine turns to reveal a very realistic story (it’s based on innovator Arunachalam Muruganantham’s life), told in an extremely entertaining format — a formula of sorts that Akshay has lately mastered, to deliver six back-to-back hits in a row already! His last release, Toilet - Ek Prem Katha, on the problem of open defecation in India, was predominantly set in Mathura.

From the look of it, Pad Man is shot in both, picturesque India (mainly Maheshwar, near Indore), and the US (the United Nations headquarters in New York). The visuals are stunning. But at the core of it is an equally important, national issue — menstruation, sanitary napkins, female health, and hygiene.

As Akshay said at a conversation held at the midday office recently, “Most of us don’t know that 84 per cent of Indian women don’t use (sanitary) pads. It’s a shame for India. Abroad, people will be shocked to learn that over here, we use mud, dirty cloth, and so many other things.”

Looking to highlight the concern, he said, “We got the story about what happens to a man, when he invents a low-cost pad. He loses everything in his life. I’m very happy to present this story to the world.”

As this dogged, uneducated social entrepreneur, Akshay speaks in broken English in Pad Man’s trailer, as he says, “I not go to IIT. IIT come to [learn from] me.” We hope the audiences come to theatres as well.