MUMBAI: From 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' to 'Children Of A Lesser God', 'My Left Foot' and 'Rain Man', Hollywood has a long history of portraying people with disabilities or illnesses on screen.
In contrast, India's popular Hindi-language film industry has traditionally shied away from real-life subjects, preferring flights of fancy on romantic love.
But now three major upcoming films are portraying a central character with a disability or illness, marking a shift away from fantasy to treating more contemporary themes.
Amitabh Bachchan, 66, stars alongside his son Abhishek, 33, in 'Paa'(Father), out later this year. Their real-life relationship is reversed on screen, with Amitabh playing Abhishek's son.
Bachchan senior's character has the rare genetic condition progeria, which leads to premature ageing and affects about one in six million children worldwide.
Shahrukh Khan, known for his romantic hits, plays a man with Asperger's Syndrome in his latest offering, 'My Name Is Khan', which also deals with the treatment of Muslims in the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Hrithik Roshan, meanwhile, portrays a wheelchair user in 'Guzaarish'(Wishes) alongside Abhishek Bachchan's wife, Aishwarya Rai, in a film due out next year.
The films follow the recent release of 'Shadow', an action thriller starring Nasser Khan, who is blind, and Tamil-language (Tollywood) film 'Nadodigal' (Nomads), with actress Abhinaya, who cannot hear or speak.
Both films made headlines in India because of the actors' disabilities, as Nasser Khan plays a character who can see in the movie and Abhinaya lip-synched dialogue that was later dubbed in.
'My Name Is Khan' producer-director Karan Johar admitted recently that the film's subject matter was a departure for Bollywood and had surprised some fans.
'When I was shooting... in Los Angeles, many NRIs (non-resident Indians) came and asked me if there were interesting romantic songs in the film,' he said.
'I said, 'no' and they were quite disappointed. This film would be completely different for me as I have never dealt with this kind of subject.'
Khan, who took a risk by playing a field hockey coach and abandoning his clean-shaven look for a beard in the successful offbeat film 'Chak De India' in 2007, acknowledged that exploring new themes was a risk.
'If a film is a hit everyone praises it. If it is a flop then everyone says you chose a wrong subject,' he said. 'I feel you never know what will work.'
For Bachchan, Bollywood's most recognisable star at home and abroad, 'Paa'is not new territory.
Last year, he made his first English-language film, 'The Last Lear', while in 'Black' (2005), he played a teacher with Alzheimer's Disease who falls in love with a student (Rani Mukherjee) who is deaf, blind and without speech.
Leading actor Aamir Khan also made his directorial debut in 2007 with the film 'Taare Zameen Par' (Stars On Earth), about a child with dyslexia.
The low-budget film, made for under 50 million rupees (one million dollars), was a critical and commercial success, taking a reported 700 million rupees at the box office.
It was also entered for this year's Oscars and applauded for raising awareness of dyslexia, thought to affect some one in 10 people.
Just as 'Rain Man' and 'Philadelphia' brought greater awareness of autism and HIV/AIDS, director Sanjay Leela Bhansali said he wants 'Guzaarish' to be 'inspirational and not some depressing and defeatist story of physical disability'.
This attitude is gaining greater currency in star-driven Bollywood, where movie stars and producers have to work harder to attract and keep audiences, as other forms of entertainment like cable television and DVD rentals increase.
Veteran producer Mukesh Bhatt suggested that Bollywood would experiment more in the future.
'I feel our film industry has realised that it is not the stars that sells at the box office but a good story,' he said. —AFP
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