General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Mai

Mai (Hindi: मई) is a 2013 Indian Hindi-language family drama directed by Mahesh Kodiyal, starring the playback singer Asha Bhosle in her first and only acting role as an elderly mother with Alzheimer's disease who is passed among her four grown children until her eldest daughter takes over her care.¹^•² It was released in India on 1 February 2013.³

Key fact	Detail
Release	1 February 2013, India, limited theatrical release; Hindi language⁴
Director and writer	Mahesh Kodiyal, who also wrote the story, screenplay, and dialogues with Manoj Tapadia⁵
Cast	Asha Bhosle (Mai), Padmini Kolhapure (Madhu), Ram Kapoor (Subhash), Shivani Joshi, Navin Kaushik, Anupam Kher in a cameo³^•²
Significance	Asha Bhosle's acting debut, made at age 79, and Mahesh Kodiyal's first film as director⁶^•⁷
Music	Nitin Shankar; Bhosle sings the lullaby "Chanda Ki Bindiya"⁵^•³
Runtime and certificate	1 hour 45 minutes (105 minutes); certified U in India⁸
Reception	Times of India critic rating 2.5/5; users' rating 2.8/5 from 190 votes³
Availability	Buy or rent on Amazon Video and the Apple TV Store⁹

Spoilers

Plot

Mai (Asha Bhosle), an uneducated woman from rural Maharashtra who came to the city after marriage, raised three daughters and a son alone after her husband died when the son was about three years old, working as a housemaid to make ends meet.⁵ In old age she develops Alzheimer's disease, and her children shuffle her back and forth rather than accept responsibility for her.¹ Her son Munna, on whom she had placed her greatest hopes, takes a job in the United States and leaves her; her two younger daughters also decline to care for her.¹⁰

Madhu's choice. The eldest daughter, Madhu (Padmini Kolhapure), a self-made advertising professional in her late 30s, takes her mother in against the wishes of her journalist husband Subhash (Ram Kapoor) and her college-age daughter Charu, who say they need space.³^•⁵ As Mai's condition worsens, she slips in and out of confusion and relives past moments in the present; the strain on Madhu's marriage and work grows until her deteriorating mother forces her to quit her job.⁵^•⁸ The relationship between Mai and her son-in-law takes a turn that changes his life.⁵

Production and casting

Kodiyal originally approached Asha Bhosle only to sing a lullaby for the film. During the song recording, seeing her without make-up in a simple saree, he decided she was right for the title role and, encouraged by the producer, asked her to act; she agreed immediately.² In a 2011 interview with PTI, the then 77-year-old singer said she took the project, then titled Maaee, for "fun", describing it as a story set in Mumbai's urban upper middle class with a social message.¹¹ She said the title moved her because it was the name her family used for their own mother.¹¹

Padmini Kolhapure, Bhosle's real-life niece, was cast as the elder daughter on Bhosle's own suggestion, on the grounds that working with a family member would be comfortable.² The film was produced by Nitin Shankar and Subhash Dawar through Alliance Entertainment and Rhythm D'vine Entertainment, with cinematography by Sachin Kumar Krishnan and editing by Ashish Amrute.⁵^•⁴ Its premiere at Cinemax Versova in Mumbai on 31 January 2013 drew Bollywood figures including Amitabh Bachchan, Sridevi, Kajol, and Anil Kapoor.¹²

Reception

Critics rated the film middling and singled out Bhosle's performance. The Times of India gave it 2.5 out of 5, calling her performance heartrending but the subject clichéd, and praising the mother-daughter bond scenes while criticizing the melodrama and hazy cinematography.³ Nowrunning's Mansha Rastogi wrote that the film deserved a watch for Bhosle's "stupendous acting debut" and noted that Kodiyal sensitively captured the deterioration caused by Alzheimer's, but judged that without the debut the film would have gone unnoticed given its reliance on familiar Bollywood formulas.¹⁰ Filmfare's Rachit Gupta called Bhosle the film's selling point but found the writing and direction weak, comparing its plot to Baghban.¹³ A dementia-care resource site judged the film's medical depiction fairly complete, showing diagnosis, typical changed behaviors such as wandering and confusion, and family reactions, while noting that Mai's deterioration proceeds unusually fast.¹⁴

Other works with the same title

The name Mai has been used for unrelated films and series. A 2022 Hindi Netflix series titled Mai, created by Atul Mongia and directed by Mongia with Anshai Lal and produced by Clean Slate Filmz, stars Sakshi Tanwar as a mother investigating her daughter's death, with a cast including Raima Sen, Wamiqa Gabbi, and Seema Pahwa; it began streaming on Netflix on 15 April 2022.¹⁵ Mai Ratima (2012) is a Korean film directed by Yoo Ji-tae about a Thai woman who marries into a Korean family.¹⁶

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Web-native and streaming-original series › Indian and South Asian web series › Premiered 2021 to 2025

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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Mai