Astu (So Be It) is a brilliant Marathi film that you should not miss this weekend. This poignant, sensitive, thought-provoking film by Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukthankar, is about a family struggling to cope with an ageing father, who has Alzheimer's. Dr Chakrapani Shastri, a retired Sanskrit scholar, is losing his memory because of Alzheimer's. Child-like now, he impulsively follows an elephant in a crowded street one day, and goes missing. His daughter Ira (Irawati Harshe) and son-in-law Madhav (Milind Soman) go into a tizzy looking for him. Finally, the couple tending to the elephant (Amruta Subhash and Nachiket Purnapatre), unable to trace his family because he doesn't remember his name or address, instinctively adopt the helpless old man. The film richly deserved its two National Awards for Best Dialogue by Sumitra Bhave and Best Supporting Actress for Amruta Subhash. It has also been to numerous festivals, including the New York Indian Film Festival, the Indian Film Festival Stuttgart, where it won the Audience Award, and the International Film Festivals of Kerala and Bengaluru. Currently, the film is showing in over 40 cinemas all across Mumbai and Maharashtra.

Dr Mohan Agashe in Astu (So Be It)