‘Padma_ _ ‘ seems to be the flavour of the season. Based on the true story of Coimbatore school dropout Arunachalam Murugananthan, who revolutionised the concept of making affordable sanitary pads for rural women, R. Balki’s PadMan is fictionalised enough to stray from the realms of a documentary.

Lakshmikant Chauhan is a welder in Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh. He is obsessed with women’s hygiene: he detests the sight of women in his household, including his newly wedded wife (Gayatri), being quarantined for those five days of the month and using filthy rags as sanitary pads.

And when, in the dead of the night, he is seen offering unsolicited advice and sanitary napkins to a girl experiencing her first periods, villagers shun him and Gayatri is taken back to his in-laws. Till he meets the urban Pari (Sonam Kapoor) whose entrepreneurial skills make him the toast of the nation… and the United Nations!

Akshay Kumar has of late been championing the cause of eradicating social evils (Toilet, Jolly LLB-2) and parts of his 10-minute speech at the UN, one of the highpoints of the film, sound suspiciously like the ‘Beti Bachao – Padhao’ campaign. Radhika Apte, as the woman torn between husband and social mores is perfectly cast while Sonam Kapoor, as Pari, who’s besotted with Lakshmi, adds more than a dash of romance. Akshay has some good one-liners in the film, though his English accent keeps fluctuating – especially during his speech at the UN. Amitabh Bachchan has an interesting cameo, no doubt courtesy Balki, who’s directed AB in three films so far.

Contrary to popular belief, PadMan is not the first film to deal with this theme. The 2013 documentary on Murugan, ‘Menstrual Man’ was followed last year by ‘Phullu’ which controversially saw a limited release. Completed since 2015, the unreleased ‘I-pad’ too deals with a similar subject.
The narrative in PM seems to meander at times. Though the subject is dealt with directly, not in ‘whispers’, though with needless primers on bank loans and cellulose fibres, it’s ‘extra-long’ at 140 minutes. Period!