Few events signal the arrival of adulthood like the birth of one’s own bundle of joy. It is a momentous occasion — an announcement that one has the wherewithal to deal with the endless entropy that comes with raising a child. It usually requires two members of our species to get the job done and even then, rarely is it done right. Therefore, the world watches with great surprise and unnecessary inquisitiveness when someone decides to walk this path alone. Being a single parent requires supreme commitment, especially because the proverbial “village” is sometimes less responsive to their needs. But rarely, if ever, does a person decide to become a parent out of pure whimsy.
Rajeev Menon, all around cad and protagonist of Dasharatham , lives a hedonistic life funded by his deceased father’s wealth. The product of a broken home, Rajeev is a practitioner of the “no strings attached” existence. His estate and businesses are ably managed by Pillai, who is at his wits’ end as a result of his antics. Pillai’s exasperation is well-founded; drinking, gambling and being a public nuisance are not expected of a captain of industry. When the family of Rajeev’s drinking buddy Zachariah, visits his home on a vacation, Rajeev gets unduly attached to Zachariah’s son. While six sheets to the wind in a bar, he asks Zachariah if he could buy his son. The request is an insight into the depths of Rajeev’s detachment.
Politely rebuffed by his friend, Rajeev seeks medical intervention to achieve his goal. Despite Rajeev’s predisposition for frivolity, his doctor Hameed is persuaded by his fervency. He suggests in-utero fertilisation and even facilitates a surrogate, Annie, to bear his child. Annie is in a predicament of her own. Chandradas, her husband, requires an operation to escape the clutches of a debilitating disease and resurrect his sports career. In return for Annie playing surrogate, Rajeev’s deep pockets will finance Chandradas’ surgery. Rajeev, Hameed and Chandradas are comfortable viewing the arrangement as purely business, but misgivings are written large on Annie and her mother-in-law’s faces. Naturally, the only people capable of foreseeing the complexities ahead are the only one’s capable of childbirth. But faced with no options they submit to Rajeev’s request.
Gestation is a process in which men are purely spectators. Reading books on childcare and changing the paint on the walls are an over-compensation for their lack of control. Rajeev does all of these things and in the process alienates Annie, now pregnant with his child, even further. In the ultimate manifestation of insecurity he separates Annie from her husband. His lack of understanding of human emotions undoes every one of his positive actions. Eventually, as he realises the folly of his ways, Rajeev and Annie develop a fragile but functional relationship and he learns to perceive Annie as a human being, not just a uterus for hire. But neither Rajeev nor Chandradas is prepared for Annie’s change of heart after the birth.
Dasharatham implies that doing the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons, can be its own reward. The bacchanalian Rajeev we see at the beginning of the film conceals a grievously injured inner child. In the nine months that Annie is pregnant with his son, he exorcises his own ghosts and learns to trust people — to allow them into his life. But most importantly, he gains the strength to let go of what he loves most. Simply by coming into existence Rajeev’s son transforms him from a petulant child to an adult. After all, what is more adult than enduring in the face of heartbreak?