"Police encounter, Dad. Your son's a police officer."
- Dada revealing the truth to his father.
"You are right! Goddess has not given up my father from her hands, but she gave you up, Michael. Happy, now? Shall we go?"
-Dada to Michael before killing him.
"Will you kill your own son to save someone who was like a son to you, Father?"
-Dada questioning Gandi's morals.
Dadabhai Naoroji (alias Dada) (pronounced as- "Dha-Dha- Bai Naw-Rho-Jee") is the main antagonist of the 2022 Indian-Tamil-Language-Action Flim Mahaan . He is a corrupt police officer who was assigned on a Secret Task Force duty in order to take down one of India's biggest liquor mafia's and brand, Soora, which was run by none other than his own father, Gandhi Mahaan and uses it as a opportunity to give justice and get revenge to his father for seemingly abandoning his family many years ago.
He is portrayed by Dhruv Vikram who is also the son of the very same actor who portrayed Gandhi Mahaan in the film Chiyaan Vikram . The actor had also sung for one of Dada's featured songs in the flim.
Appearance[]
Dada's appearance has a noticeable change, when he was a child, Dada was initially obese, he always had neatly combed hair and alot of face fat. When Dada grows to be a college student he takes a much more leaner and taller bulid safe from facial hair. After Dada joins the police training academy he maintains a sleek, black, moustache and dons a military look, he also gains a really muscular bulid from his training in the Academy, at present he has grown a beard joined to his mustache.
Biography/Story[]
Dada was born to his parents Gandi Mahaan and Nachi in a unknown year, it can still easily be said that Dada was someone who was in his 20's possibly an age slightly above 25.
Dada was born to a family of Mahatma Gandi's worshippers, this was because his grandfather, Mohandoss, who used to be a middle aged liquor activist pushing on a ban for alcohol and had fought for the freedom and independence of India alongside Mahatma Gandi harned his respect pf Mahatma and a worship passed down a family lineage. Dada seemed to be close to both his mother and father and was an ordinary student at school. One day, after coming back from a trip to Tirupati with only his mother, his family finds out that his father had drunk Alcohol when he was left alone and was out partying in order to enjoy his 50th birthday after a brief reconciliation with his old friend Sathya (who was the son of Soosaiappan who was a arch nemesis of Gandhi's father). Because of going against the Family's ideals, his mother, Nachi takes him away and his family leaves Gandhi alone. Despite his father's initial attempts in order to explain his wronging, it was to no avail as Dada and his family moved away from the state to Northern India.
His childhood was hence filled with a broken family. His father ends up pairing up with his friend in order to start his own Alcohol brand inspired by his friend's toddy recipe. The brand named as Soora became a commercial success as his dad and his group became a bunch of rich businessmen, on the other hand, his mother who tried to move on from his father and attempted to marry someone else threw off the marriage completely due to past feelings. Dada eventually realizes that his father was living a life much better than their own after just destroying their whole family. He swears to protect his grandfather's last wish who claims that Dada must get revenge on his father for betraying them.
This motivates Dada to attend and study to be a law enforcement worker possibly a police officer, he maintains Gandhian ideals and refuses to go into any bad habits resorting to even violence if someone tries to force him. Out of the habits he deliberately has a deep hatred to Alcohol claiming that it always reminds him of his father and keeps on having hatred and revenge brewed inside him to get back at his father. Dada's hard work harmers him to be a police officer even then he was never fully satisfied even if he had performed exceptionally well in training courses. His work leads him to get assigned to missions, even dangerous ones, he never had any remorse for any criminal and immediately kills them which is where he starts to gain corrupting, his work is eventually recognized and Dada's assigned to be the leader of Taskforce aimed to bring down the Mafia his dad had bulit and use it as a means to get back on his father.
At present, Dada makes his way to a festival his father was attending at the request of his gang member, Michael, who tells him that he should perform a ritual dance to the Goddess and pray for what he wants (which in the time was for his son to come back). Dada eventually enters back in a rather dramatic way and has a dance-off with his father shortly before he reveals that he is his son. Both share a "happy reconciliation" Michael joins in and praises the Lord for not giving up on Gandhi's last wishes, Dada shares the same feeling but claims that the Goddess couldn't protect Michael before shooting and killing him in front of his father, he psychotically reveals his dad that he was a police officer and mocks him for waiting for him to return telling that their "Father-Son" game had just begun.
after the event, his father confronts him to which Dada simply responds casually that his main goal was to not kill his father but to kill everyone who was paired with him and hence destroy the empire he had built. This leads his father onto a state of panic, but he eventually realizes that his son was not fully behind this.
One of Gandhi's arch-nemesis, a politician named Gnanam wanted to exact his revenge on the group for publicly shaming him after he tried to exercise his power to cancel out Soora. Gnanam manipulated Dada into working for him and used it as an advantage to get revenge on his father which will indirectly give him what he wanted. On the orders of Gnanam, Dada eventually killed another one of his father's members, Anthony. Though there was no reason for this, it was simply because Anthony had told the social media platforms, publicly that Gnanam was his father who had abandoned him and his Mother after having an affair.
This prompts Rocky, who Gandhi was a godfather of to swear he will kill Dada in his own hands, realizing there might be a way to save all this, Gandhi tries to talk to Rocky and state to him that Dada was his real son hoping that he would understand. Gandi and Rocky eventually confront Dada, to which Rocky explains to Dada that his father was not a bad person and he had missed Dada every single hour of any day, this makes Dada "emotional" as he cries but not before laughing it off saying that if Rocky were to make an indian soap opera it would be popular. Rocky realizes his mistake of not being able to convince Dada and attempts to shoot him but to no avail as Dada disarms him but shooting his hand, he ends up killing Rocky and in a flashback it was seen that if Dada was Gandhi's son, then being the "adoptive" son of him meant that Dada was like a younger brother to him, hoping they could talk.
This infuriates Gandi who straight up attacks his son but to no avail as Dada's hand to hand combat mastery exceeded more than his own father's however Gandi is able to knock Dada out but unable to kill him as he runs away from the place. Gandi goes back to his wife hoping to convince her to make Dada stop claiming that Sathya (His business partner) would not leave Dada alone after the death of Rocky, who was the original son of Sathya, Dada refuses to listen and Gandhi enters a panicked state, unaware of what to do.
Meanwhile, Gnanam kidnaps "Dada" and uses it as a manipulation tactic in order to convince Gandi to even finish off Sathya with his own hands. Gandi visits Sathya who had just been sent a video of his son's death (sent by Dada) to his phone. Gandi tries to convince Sathya to leave his son alone but he was too rage-consumed realizing that Gandi had been there but could not save Rocky. Sathya being a devoted christian swears to the Lord that Dada will die in his hands, however this makes Gandi to immediately kill off Sathya. Gandi takes his car, gifted by Sathya and burns in despair to erase all memories, Dada comes to pick his father up but again psychopathically laughs at him and his friend's death and claim that they can all live as a happy family. Gandi however decides to make a bigger plan, making it seem like Gnanam wanted him dead as well and kidnapped his mother in order to make Dada kill him. This makes Dada get convinced by Gandi to finish off Gnanam, and after the task had successfully been finished, Dada comes and sits outside. His father on the other hand sells all his assets and closes down Soora and all destroys all Liquor at his house and claims that Dada was now a corrupt police officer who had requested money from his boss, and eventually assassinated the Cheif Minister (Gnanam) because he had not gotten the money, making Dada an accused and getting arrested. At the end of the flim, he drinks a shot of Soora, breaking his ideals, and is arrested.
Personality[]
Ever since Dada was young as a child, he always wanted to gain revenge on his father and expressed deep hatred. Growing up, these feelings continued to intensify more and more to a point that Dada became obsessed with getting Revenge even go as far as to pursue study and work-hard just to be tasked to get rid of his dad's empire.
Dada can be seen as someone who is psychotic, this is taken from the fact that Dada wanted to see his own father suffer despite him being his own dad, he took deep pride and happiness whenever someone close to father dies, he occasionally finds it entertaining when his father is distraught of his actions. Dada claims that he cares of his father stating that he was not there to kill him, but ironically, he was willing to even get physical and beat up his dad not having a care of how he had aged even going to an extent of killing him. His hatred filled heart and desire pushed him to a point he was ready to kill even his father's subordinates who were just innocent and were already in the alcohol business who started the empire on legal standards, this also shows that he was a corrupt police officer who frames his murders as an "encounter" (where the cop has permission to kill the criminal if the criminal is suspected to have tried to harm the cop), again, another irony since he believe in justice but used illegal means to get it so.
Dada is also a very emotionally manipulative person, he was able to take advantage of his father's love for him in order to carry out his activities, he was able to ask his father questions or challenge his father's ideals whenever his father wanted to bring justice to his son such as asking him if he was willing to sacrifice him for someone who was like a son (Rocky). Dada is also seen to act really well as when Rocky tried to lecture him, he pretends to break down and cry but rather laughed it off.
He also has no remorse of criminals whether they are innocent or not and occasionally kills many criminals and framed it as being done for his own safety.
However, despite his bitter personality, Dada has a soft side which is typically shown towards his mother who practically raised him when his father was not there. He gets emotional and straight up mad whenever someone tries to provoke his mother and even yelled at his own father for talking badly about her. This soft side was eventually exploited by his father to manipulate him and turn him into a criminal, which shows that he was quite gullible enough.
He also lacks a sense of thought, since for his mother he kills a government official who was in the highest power in the state not having a care of the consequences that ultimately led to his downfall.
Despite it, Dada has traits of determination and loyalty. He was determined to pursue his goal and climbed the ranks being a law enforcement member and provide justice. He was loyal in maintaining his ideals till the end even though some actions he did were heavily contradictory.
Trivia[]
- The actor who plays Dada in the flim is the son of the actor who played Dada's father, Gandhi Mahaan.
- The actor had also originally sung for the Dada's featured song in the flim composing his own lyrics and singing them on his own.[1]