''Mala Aai Vhhaychy!'' (, ) is a 2011 Indian

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

-language film produced and directed by Samruoddhi Porey. The story deals with growing surrogacy practices in India where women are used as surrogates by foreigners. The film is an emotional drama telling the story of one such surrogate mother who bears a foreigner's child. The film is critically acclaimed and won

National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Marathi The National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Marathi is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. It is one of severa ...

in 2011. It was remade in

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

as ''

Welcome Obama ''Welcome Obama'' is a 2013 Indian Telugu-language drama film directed by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, who also composed the soundtrack. A remake of the Marathi film '' Mala Aai Vhhaychy!'' (2011), the film stars Urmila Kanitkar, Rachel and Esteb ...

'' in 2013, and in

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

language as Mimi in 2021.

Plot

Mary comes looking to India for a surrogate mother to bear a child. She finds a poor woman Yashoda who accepts the offer. Yashoda gets pregnant successfully. But during her pregnancy, doctors inform Mary & Yashoda that due to some complications the child would probably be born with disabilities. Mary decides to quit through this and leaves India. Yashoda begs her to not leave. But she is then left alone with a child in her womb. Few years later Mary loses her patience and decided to come back and look for her child. The film shows the story in legal and emotional perspective of who should the child be with; his surrogate mother who raised him or his mother who has the blood relation with him.

Cast

* Urmila Kanetkar as Yashoda *Stacy Bee as Mary *Samruoddhi Porey as Nanda *Aiden Barkely as Madhav *Vivek Raut as Ganpath *

Sulbha Deshpande Sulabha Deshpande ( mr, सुलभा देशपांडे; 1937 – 4 June 2016) was an Indian actress and theatre director. Apart from Marathi theatre and Hindi theatre in Mumbai, she acted in over 73 mainstream Bollywood films. She als ...

as Sindhu tai *Askhay Deshpande *Shreya Porey *Suchitra Bandekar *Matt Ridde *Rupali Modak, Rupali Modak *Atul Bhardwaj *Sandip Rajput *Ronit Malode *Srushti Porey *Shubhankar Raut *Nakshatra Rajgire *Sumit Ghom

Production

The writer-director-producer of the film, Samruoddhi Porey is a practicing lawyer in Bombay High Court. The story of the film is based on one of the surrogacy cases she came across. The film completed its shooting in the rural areas near

Melghat Melghat was among the first nine tiger reserves of India to be notified in 1973 under Project Tiger. It is located at in the northern part of Amravati District of Maharashtra. Melghat Wildlife Sanctuary was declared as in 1985. The Tapti Riv ...

Chikhaldara Chikhaldara is a hill station and a municipal council in Amravati district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Chikaldhara, literally translates from Marathi to mud stream/falls (''chikal'' + ''dhara''). Hindus claim that this place was featu ...

of Amravati district in Maharashtra. Aiden Barkely, who plays the role of a 4 year old surrogate child hails from

Washington DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

. He was selected for the role because of his blonde looks and was then tutored in Marathi, especially the Warhadi dialect. Aiden's father Matt also appears in the film. Matt and his spouse confirmed that Aiden himself was a surrogate child born in India and they were back in India to have their second surrogate child when Porey noticed Aiden and approached them for the role.

Awards and recognition

The film won the

. The film was also selected to be shown to President Obama by President

Pratibha Patil Prathibha DeviSingh Patil (born 19 December 1934) is an Indian politician and lawyer who served as the 12th president of India spanning from 2007 to 2012. She is the first woman to become the president of India. A member of the Indian National ...

Soundtrack

The music of the film is composed by Ashok Patki on lyrics written by Samruoddhi Porey. Kunal Ganjawala and

Vaishali Samant Vaishali Samant is an Indian music composer, lyricist and playback singer who is popularly known for her work in the Marathi film and music industry. Her career on television has included being a judge on the reality singing competition shows. ...

have sung the songs.

References

External links

* * {{National Film Award Best Feature Film Marathi 2011 films Indian drama films Marathi films remade in other languages Best Marathi Feature Film National Film Award winners Indian pregnancy films Films about surrogacy 2010s Marathi-language films