Is playing mom a dead end for Tabu?

After playing mother to Shahid Kapoor (33) in Haider, the 42-year-old Tabu will be seen as a mum to a young man in the remake of Drishyam as well. Tabu will play the antagonist to Ajay’s protagonist a senior police officer who shields her son from the law after he films a girl in a compromising position. After he is murdered by those he has wronged, Tabu’s character is shown going on the warpath, trying to bring his killers to book.

So has Tabu written off conventional leading lady roles after Haider? Sources close to the actress feel otherwise. “Yes, she plays a young adult’s mother in Drishyam, but you can’t think of it as a mommy role. Her part is as powerful as Ajay Devgn’s,” an aide said.

Incidentally, back when Vishal Bhardwaj had offered Tabu the role in Haider, she wasn’t sure about playing Shahid’s mother. “It wasn’t easy to convince Tabu, she refused at first. But he pointed out that this was Hamlet, and Gertrude’s was the second most important character,” a source close to the actress tells us.

Not everyone in the industry feels that playing mum to an actor only nine years her junior was the wisest choice. A reputed filmmaker who has worked with Tabu in the past pointed out that when Waheeda Rehman played mum to Jaya Bhaduri in Phagun, an actress only 10 years younger than her, it effectively ended Wahedaji’s career as a leading lady.

The legendary actress herself admits that she was “flooded” with ‘mommy’ roles after Phagun, and that she found herself playing Rajesh Khanna’s mother a mere nine years after she was his love interest in Khamoshi. Waheedaji believes that the male-dominated film industry accords premature matriarchal status to heroines. “Heroines for our established heroes are getting younger. Actresses who started their career with these established heroes are quickly promoted to senior roles,” she pointed out, adding that this was the norm in cinema everywhere. “Look at Meryl Streep. She contemplates quitting every year, then Hollywood quickly offers her another role. Sadly in our industry, there’s no such remedial procedure. Once a heroine is past a particular age, she has to graduate to mothers’ roles or quit,” she rued. Is Tabu headed for a similar path? Only time, and the actress, can tell.