Amitabh Bachchan’s turn as Auro, a child suffering from progeria, in ‘Paa’ has won him his third National Award for Best Actor. And the first person to congratulate him on the triumph was his real-life son and movie dad Abhishek Bachchan.
Abhishek, who played Big B’s father in ‘Paa’ posted on his Twitter page, “I'm a very proud father today!!!!! My son just won the national award for his performance in PAA!!!!!!” He added later, "So excuse me for a while going off to do the monkey dance!!!!! Auro, auro, auro!!!!!!"
And the good wishes started flowing in from the rest of B'wood too.
Bipasha Basu said, "Congratulations to SrBachchan fr the most deserving national award fr PAA. Celebrations!"
Shilpa Shetty added, Well deserved National award, not that you need an award to reiterate your greatness as an actor:)"
And Arshad Warsi posted on Twitter, "Congratulation to the greatest actor this side of the hemisphere... We love you."
Big B had won the Best Actor National Award earlier for 'Agneepath' (1991) and 'Black' (2006). He had also picked up the Best Newcomer National Award for his performance in his debut 'Saat Hindustani' (1970).
So the win for ‘Paa’ makes it Best Actor National Award number three for Amitabh Bachchan, and with this he has caught up with Southern superstars Mammooty and Kamal Hassan who have each won the National Award thrice.
'Paa' also won the Award for Best Feature Film (Hindi) and got Arundhati Nag the award for Best Supporting actress. She played Big B's character's grandma in the movie.
Apart from 'Paa', '3 Idiots' also won big at the National Awards for 2009. The Aamir Khan starrer took home the award for Best Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment and Best Lyrics for Swanand Kirkire for the song 'Behti hawa sa tha woh'.
List of National Award winners this year:
Best Actor - Amitabh Bachchan for 'Paa'
Best Actress - Ananya Chatterjee for 'Abohoman' (Bengali)
Best Supporting Actor - Farooque Shaikh for 'Lahore'
Best Supporting Actress - Arundhati Nag for 'Paa'
Best Director - Raju Hirani for '3 Idiots' and Rituparno Ghosh for 'Abhoman' (Bengali)
Best Debut Director - Sanjay Puran Singh for 'Lahore'
Best Music: Amit Trivedi for 'Dev D'
Best Lyrics - Swanand Kirkire - 'Behti hawa sa tha woh' from '3 Idiots'
Best Producer - Vidhu Vinod Chopra for '3 Idiots'
Best Feature Film (Hindi) - 'Paa'
Best Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment - '3 Idiots'
Best Film on Social Issues - 'Well Done Abba'
Best National Integration Film - 'Delhi 6'
Best Feature Film (Marathi) – 'Natarang'
Best Feature Film (Bengali) - 'Abohoman'
Best Feature Film (Overall) - 'Kutty Srank' (Malayalam)
Best Special Effects - Kamal Kannan for Magadheera
(Telugu)
Best Child Artists - Jiva, Anba Karasu for 'Pasanga' (Tamil)
Best Kids Film - Ottani Pati and Keshu
Special Jury Award - Editor Sreekar Prasad
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The two new releases, PAA and RADIO, started on a slow note on Friday. PAA, of course, had a better start, with the film opening to a 30% response at several plexes. The occupancy picked up by noon shows and the film was in the 60% + range towards the evening shows at plexes of major centres.
Can you ever imagine watching an Amitabh Bachchan film and not watching Amitabh Bachchan in it? Seems impossible, isn't it? The towering persona and the rich baritone just cannot be overlooked. But R. Balki transforms the legendary actor into Auro, replaces the rich baritone with the voice of an adolescent [who's neither grown up, nor a kid] and taps the hitherto untapped talent of the icon.
Auro [Amitabh Bachchan] is an intelligent, witty 13-year-old boy with an extremely rare genetic defect that causes accelerated ageing. He suffers from progeria. Mentally, he is 13, very normal, but physically he looks five times older.
Note the two sequences in the climax, when Auro reveals what his father's first mistake was and the pheras towards the end. Also recall the scene when the girl Auro detests for a certain reason shows up with a sketch of Auro. It moves you completely.
Now to the performances! No amount of praise, no amount of adjectives and personifications would do justice to Amitabh Bachchan's performance as Auro. Sure, the icon has enthralled us with superlative performances in his four-decade career, but PAA is something else. The icon keeps surprising you at regular intervals and PAA is one of those beautiful surprises, which will remain etched in your memory forever.
On the whole, PAA is an amazing experience. It makes you realize two things. One, the Hindi film industry is also capable of narrating fresh stories. Two, Amitabh Bachchan is truly the most accomplished actor this side of the Atlantic.
Vidya Balan, who is playing Amitabh Bachchan's mother in her forthcoming movie "Paa", says that now she can proudly tell everyone that the 67-year-old megastar was her first child.
Abhishek Bachchan is all praise for real-life dad Amitabh Bachchan who is bound to leave audiences in awe with his performance in Paa. Director Balki who earlier directed Amitabh Bachchan in Cheeni Kum with Tabu got the idea of Paa after researching over the disease Progeria and also a certain day when he saw both father – son bonding, ‘The idea came when I walked into Amitji’s office one day and found Abhishek there in a very mature mould. I was completely fascinated seeing a sombre Abhishek and a playful Amitji who was lounging around. The scene I saw made it seem like Abhishek was the elder and Amitji was the son.’
Director R Balki made the decision as he believes (rightly so) that it is the first time Amitabh Bachchan is playing a 12 year-old and. The Cheeni Kum director said that if there is anyone in India who (possibly) hasn’t seen Bachchan before will not recognize him at all. His character is simply called Auro in the film.
