Trust Ayushmann Khurrana to pick interesting films – the actor debuted with the 2012 film Vicky Donor which was about sperm donation and has starred in numerous acclaimed projects since. Now, he is back with Badhaai Ho, a comedy that shines the light on something that society never discusses.

From what we’ve seen of the trailer, this is how the story goes – Ayushmann plays a grown man who discovers that his parents have quite an active sex life. In fact, his mother (played by the brilliant Neena Gupta) gets pregnant while she is almost touching menopause. Naturally, this comes as a massive shock to Ayushmann and his grandmother – the neighbours don’t help either and are full of snide remarks and such.

What’s refreshing is that the film talks about a common notion that most of the Indian populace seem to hold – for some odd reason, they cannot imagine that their parents (especially if they’ve hot south of a certain age) have an active sex life. This idea affects women more as they are put on a pedestal and handed the role of the nursing mother – a supposedly asexual being. For many, the only time a woman is supposed to indulge in intercourse is when she’s married and has to produce a child. Once that’s done with, she becomes a mother and how could a mother have sexual thoughts?

This stems from a deep sense of discomfort and shame that we associate with sex and the pleasures of the body. Many argue that this mindset was handed down to us by the prudish British and it’ll take quite a while to decolonise our mind. Hopefully, with films like Badhaai Ho, that process will be escalated.