Panga(2020)

Plot Summary

• Jaya Nigam (Kangana Ranaut) is a former Kabaddi world champion and current railways officer (who mans the ticket counters at the local railway station) who is married to Prashant Shrivastava (Jassi Gill), a railways chief engineer, and has a son, Aditya a.k.a. Adi (Yagya Bhasin). Currently living in Bhopal after Prashant's transfer to the city, the couple has a normal busy life between work and their child. Although Jaya is happy, but she still yearns for her previous life as a national level sports person. Adi is often sick, and Jaya has to take him to the doctor, due to which she is late to work. Her manager at the station reminds Jaya that she is now a normal railways employee and if she needs time off, then she will need to ask for it, and that she cannot take her job for granted. At one point, as a star Kabaddi player, Jaya would miss 300 days of work, and nobody would question her, but those days are now past.Jaya is propelled both by the arrival of her former teammate Meenu (Richa Chadda) (now the coach of the Bhopal Kabaddi team and a talent scout) and a push from Adi, who learns of her achievements through Prashant. Meenu says that she has kept her association with Kabaddi as she hopes to give one player of Jaya's caliber to the national team.Adi was upset that due to her job, Jaya did not come to see him run a race in Sports Day. Prashant says that he and Jaya met in Delhi, where Jaya had got a job due to her Kabaddi. They started dating, while Jaya stayed with her mother Rachna (Neena Gupta). They got married and Jaya got selected for the National team as well. But this is when Jaya gets pregnant. Prashant tells Adi that Jaya was a national team captain, who gave up her career because Adi was born with weak immunity (he was born one month premature and had low weight and low oxygen concentration) and needed constant care to be healthy.Adi does his research and finds that Serena Williams also made a comeback after having a baby. Adi also argues that Prashant is also responsible as he could have taken care of Adi, allowing Jaya to pursue her career in Kabaddi. Jaya is encouraged to return to the sport despite facing challenges of physical fitness and newer, more experienced players. Prashant says that Jaya can try for a month and give up, if her body doesn't hold up.Jaya trains very hard (pushed by Adi) and gets more and more serious about making a comeback. Meenu is initially skeptical, but later advises Jaya to get into a railways team as that is the quickest route to a national selection. Her old coach Mr Duggal gets Jaya a trial for Eastern railways in Mumbai. Jaya gets an offer, but the coach wants her to shift to Calcutta, which Jaya refuses due to Adi. Jaya says that she will come for matches but will do her practice in Bhopal. The coach refuses this arrangement.Meenu blasts Jaya for wasting her time. Prashant is very supportive, as is Adi, and Jaya moves to Calcutta. Once there she realizes that she needs another coach to work with her on her speed and technique. Jaya asks Meenu to join her in Calcutta, which she does. Nisha Das (Megha Burman) is Jaya's roommate and team-mate and is very supportive of her and provides her own inputs into Jaya's training. Jaya develops a new trick to counter the ankle grab that her opponents have deployed successfully to thwart her. Jaya learns that her strength lies in her toughness and not in her speed. Jaya gets selected into the railways National team even though it strains her relations with her family. Prashant tries very hard but has difficulty in managing Adi all by himself.National coach Mr Sinha (Rajesh Tailang) is on the lookout for railways talent for the upcoming Asian Kabaddi championship. Jaya doesn't do very well, but the coach notices the media coverage that the women's team receives due to the comeback story of a mom. Mr Sinha says that if the sport gets popularity, they will get better players in the future as well. The coach argues for Jaya to be selected despite her not being in the initial list. The team captain Smita is decidedly hostile towards Jaya's presence in the team.Jaya sits out the first match against Thailand, which India wins easily. A player is injured in the 2nd match against Bangladesh, and the captain decides to introduce a complete novice into the game, as opposed to picking Jaya. India wins again. Smita continues to ignore Jaya in the 3rd match against Sri Lanka. She snubs Jaya in the 4th match against South Korea, when Jaya tries to give some suggestions on how to counter South Korea's speed. India wins the match barely. The coach notices Smita snubbing Jaya.India is supposed to play Iran in the finals. Smita decides to play Jaya as she thinks the team can benefit from Jaya's international exposure. The match is tied with Jaya making the final raid, and she wins 3 points for India in a thrilling encounter and India wins the trophy.

Storyline

• Rooted in the subculture of societal facts, Panga is an emotional rollercoaster tale of a middle-class Indian woman, a forgotten kabaddi world-champion who catalyzes an inner desire to give new meaning to her role as wife and mother. She makes an ingenious decision to return to the sport despite the challenges of age stereotypes and new-generation complexities. She's torn between family responsibility and love for the sport.