An unruly mop of hair covers his face. His clothes are torn. He lies abandoned in a hospital bed. When prodded, he utters his famous father’s name—Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi—in a voice heavy with agony.

This promo of Feroz Abbas Khan’s forthcoming film, Gandhi, My Father, is a pointer to a fresh attempt to humanise the Father of the Nation, who struggled to rescue his son from the vortex of alcoholism and bring him back home. The film, inspired by Chandulal Bhagubhai Dalal’s book Harilal Gandhi: A Life, talks about Gandhiji’s relationship with his troubled son, and, in the process, reintroduces Bapu as a father and a family man.

“It is very comfortable to place him on a pedestal and forget him,” says Khan, who also directed the critically-acclaimed play Mahatma Vs Gandhi, based on the same theme. “Gandhiji’s values had a deep impact on his family life. My film portrays the clash between the aspirations and expectations of a son and the principles of a father,” he adds.

Over the years, intermittent attempts have been made through films, plays and books to give Gandhiji’s demi-god persona a human touch. Yet, the preacher of non-violence has never been seen as an ordinary father or husband. There have been noticeable references to Gandhiji in Hindi films like Hey Ram, The Legend of Bhagat Singh and Maine Gandhi Ko Nahi Mara and most significantly in Lage Raho Munnabhai.

The Sanjay Dutt-starrer simplified Bapu’s principle of non-violence and truth and made Gandhigiri fashionable. The mass response that this popular film garnered was similar to what Richard Attenborough’s multiple Oscar-winning Gandhi (1982) had received decades ago. But these movies have presented Mahatma as one of the greatest leaders of the world, without providing much insight into the tangible human being behind the undeniably great soul.

... contd.