They were the master chefs of gaajar halwa. They were the empresses of tailoring machines on which they sewed, sewed and sewed the neighbour’s petticoats to pay for their 40-year-old sons’ college fees.

They were much more: the lamps which glowed on hearing that their laadlas had come first-class-first in the lord-only-know-which-examination. And of course, they longed for daughters-in-law before kicking the bucket, “Bas, meri bahu ka ek baar chand jaisa mukhda dikhla de,” they would weep from a rickety, single-pillowed charpoy.
A daughter-in-law with a moon-like face? Odd but come on guys, moms in Bollywood have always been prone to hyperbolic similes. Aah, and you know what? On Mother’s Day I miss them sorely. They were so adorably huggable, spilling over with the cola of human kindness, their foreheads coloured with so many worry lines, specks and blotches that they — the foreheads that is — resembled abstract paintings.
Sorry to say but of late, the movie heroes and heroines have been orphaned. A clear case of Mum maaro mum? Mums are no longer considered essential for bolstering a script’s ‘emotional track’. Daddies, too, have been despatched to the pearly gates, and even the dear ole ‘mausis’ (aunts, nannies) have become as extinct as the Tasmanian tiger. Three reasons: the movies have become shorter, brasher and tougher. Even if she’s around, she’s allocated a role which is briefer than the mango season.
In the event, Dabangg’s foster mum Dimple Kapadia pops up to just spew hysteria in a couple of scenes, and pays for that with her life. Zarina Wahab kicks the bucket before she can Boeing to the US in My Name is Khan. Maybe airlines cost dearly. And Aamir Khan’s elders are conspicuous by their disappearance in 3 Idiots, okay Sharman Joshi’s impoverished parents are spoofed (rib-tickingly) in the film but that’s the point. Mums aren’t glorifed any more, they’re either laid to rest or caricatured.
Or they’re kinda cool, like Kirron Kher dealing with her son’s feigned same-gender sexuality. Or Arundhati Nag who was pretty okay with her daughter’s single mother status in Paa.
Shabana Azmi will not play her 60 years unless she is the film’s focal point once again as in The Godmother. The pleasant, scrubbed-clean Reema Lagu was Salman Khan’s regular mum, besides performing the Mother India-Deewar finale of shooting down her screen son, Sanjay Dutt in Vaastav. Nowadays, she’s been missing in action.
Vamps, villains, papajis and especially matajis were once dominant-‘n’-dominating figures in Bollywood cinema. Movie mums taught the viewer to obey traditional rules, sacrifice self for the larger good and of course, to combat every sort of calamity, be it in the time of pneumonia or cholera. For the spotless-white heroes, they were the ageless muses.
Slowly but surely they have been either sidelined or exterminated, a sign of the times perhaps. With scams and assorted skullduggery, the lines between vice and virtue have blurred.
Now let’s not even psycho-babble of the classic Oedipus complex — so many heroes fell at the feet of their moms as if to inspect the shade of their toe-nails. Mother love of the obsessive kind was unintentional, the intention was to be pure and innocent.
Directors Abbas-Mustan, in the course of an interview, pointed out that they begin their movies with a scene focusing on the mother figure. And while saying that, their eyes went moist. Really!
Aah those were the good ole daze perhaps. In recent years, a Hema Malini in Baghbaan may barge into a disco to admonish a boogie boy, “You bledd..eee rowdy”, a Rekha may assent to become the mummy of an errant teenager, Sharmila Tagore may continue to wring her hands in grief, but nope, in this cellular age none of them fit into the mould of the supermas of celluloid.
Here’s saluting, then, the 10 top all-time greats mums of the movies. Maas, tujhe salaam:

Leela Chitnis (1909-2003)
Papyrus-thin, eyes like a highway deer’s alarmed by a car’s headlights, her voice would earthquake under stress. She would cook at choolahs, the smoke damaging her lungs. Her saris were almost torn, accessories were not her scene. Her forte was coughing. When she went coff, coff, coff, coff, you howled like a baby.
Legendary for: Ashok Kumar said on record that he learnt acting from her. Was always assigned strongly written parts in the films of Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand.

Durga Khote (1905-1991)
Cuddly, with a heartbreaking smile. Rational and enduring hardships galore, she used a white sari often to convey her widowhood, head covered. Her stride would be snail-paced, as if to convey a hint of arthritis.
Legendary for: The best Jodhabai ever, her joy on meeting her son after years is one of the most emotionally powerful sequences in Mughal-e-Azam. Memorable in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Bawarchi, Raj Kapoor’s Bobby, she also revived the flagging career of Jeetendra with her tear-inducing act in Bidaii.

Lalita Pawar (1916-1998)
A Meanie Jekyll and Mamma Hyde, she excelled as the wicked busybody. Her maternal side was tapped, too, most notably as a Christian mum who sought to play Cupid when she wasn’t flipping for an old man herself. One of her eyes was damaged because of a slap in the course of filming a scene. The squint became her calling card, her look could be sugary as well as rat poison.
Would like to see her again in the DVDs of: Anari, Shri 420, Mr and Mrs 55, Professor

Mumtaz Begum
(born 1923)
Forgotten completely, she had this mega-morose expression which would make your eyes water faster than a hundred chopped onions.
Not given her due, or ever showcased in the credit titles, she rarely smiled. Justifiably.
Just check out: the opening of Dev Anand’s Kaala Paani…the film begins with a tense sequence showing her running helter skelter down the streets at night.

Kamini Kaushal
(born 1927)
Elegant, urbane, after being a successful leading lady, she veered towards mum roles, and became Manoj Kumar’s regular mataji, most often in white.
Worth a recall as mum in: Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Upkar, Purab aur Paschim.

Achala Sachdev
(born 1920)
She was the upmarket mother who wore chiffons, jewellery..and heavens… in an incredible turn of circumstances, even abandoned her new-born infant for not being good-looking — the film was Meri Soorat Teri Aankhen. The abandoned kid grew up to become a black, boot-polish faced Ashok Kumar. A staple in the Yash Chopra movies, one of her last performances was in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, not as a mom…but a grandmom.
Wow moment: being serenaded with the song O meri zohra jabeen by Balraj Sahni in Waqt.

Nirupa Roy (1931-2004)
The supremo movie maa, she projected a vulnerability which inspired the nation’s protective instincts. Broader framed than the conventional screen maas, she used her eyes, mouth and voice to become the quintessential mother who would kill like a lioness to protect her cubs. Like Nargis in Mother India, she could gun down her son too if he went astray…the way she did in Deewar. And to think the role was initially offered to Vyjayanthimala Bali. “No one compares to her,” Manmohan Desai would whoop. He gave her that far-fetched scene of her three sons getting together to give her an emergy blood transfusion!
Legendary above all: for being the subject of the Oscar-worthy line, “Mere paas maa hai.”

Farida Jalal (born 1948)
Cute as a button and pocket-sized, in her younger days she couldn’t quite make it as a heroine. After a long hiatus in Bengaluru, she returned to the studios to become an adorable mum. She can make the absurd come across as plausible, like getting blown up, dynamite sticks attached to her, in an early Akshay Kumar flick. Majorly underrated.
So chweet in: Henna, Raja Hindustani, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.

Raakhee (born 1947)
Famously she once described herself as a “cine ma”. The drop-dead gorgeous Sharmilee switched to old lady roles which have had an inordinately high quota of melodrama. Perhaps tired of doing the same ole, she’s retired from the scene, it is said, to her farmhouse on the outskirts of Mumbai. “Woh aayenge…zaroor aayenge…mere Karan..Arjun” became a catchphrase when she longed for her reincarnated putras, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan, to re-rush to her rescue.
Good grief: A nerve-rattling dance of death in Dacait. And huh, the sweetheart of Amitabh Bachchan in Kabhi Kabhie, Kasme Vaade, Jurmana and more…ended up as his mataji in Shakti! Aisa bhi hota hai.

Jaya Bachchan
(born 1948)
Petite, pursed mouth, and extraordinarily powerful dialogue delivery are her strengths. After marriage and motherhood, Guddi two shoes took a long break to return with Hazaar Chaurasi ki Maa. Insists on portraying mums who have sufficient footage as well as dramatic pyrotechnics, which is perhaps why she is seen only once in an indigo moon.
Most glammed out: in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.