‘Badhaai Ho’ deals with two issues that Indians prefer to lock up in a box than ever talk about: Parents having sex and late pregnancies. At a time when sex is still a topic that makes people cringe, the makers of Badhaai Ho have seemingly dropped a bomb by making a film about an elderly couple(parents) getting pregnant.

Kaushiks are a typical middle class, Delhi based family. Beginning with the next door kitty party that is the scene of every neighbourhood. Moving to that one fateful night when a happy Jeetender Kaushik (Gajraj Rao, Father), a ticket checker at the Indian Railways, reads out his published poem on lovemaking to his wife, Priyamvada (Neena Gupta, Mother). A love story thriving amid the societal expectations of a responsible – and by extension – physically distant married couple. It’s why the film’s plot – Priyamvada’s unplanned and “embarrassing” pregnancy in her late 40s – is hardly treated as its plot twist. Jeetender stammers to announce this news to his two sons, Nakul and Gullar (Ayushmann Khurana & Shardul) and  Daadi (Surekha Sikri).

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As the film clearly highlights, for most of India, sex is merely a medium of reproduction and not an act of love. And it supposedly comes with an age limit – forbidden to couples the minute they become parents. It’s why we don’t think twice before urgently demanding “Good News” from newlyweds but balk at the idea of imagining our parents as sexual beings. Nakul reiterates his mindset when he stops mid-sex and goes, “Yeh bhi koi mummy papa ke karne wali cheez hai kya?” Each character reacts to the news of the “Nanha Mehman” (little one arriving) differently. They all eventually regret having given any space to the couple.

Indian mothers are supposed to be asexual and pure creatures. Someone looking to fulfill personal desires— whether through her work or by being sexually active—must only do so at a heavy cost that brings displeasure to the family and removes her from the stature of the ‘ideal mother’. We sometimes forget that mothers are also individuals. They too have dreams and desires of their own.

Although in this particular case the pregnancy is an accident, Badhaai Ho can help highlight an important debate about late pregnancies. Women across the world, including India, are now choosing to have children at a later age.

But regardless, we can put a bar or limit to desire for love, sex and physical affection for elderly, it is there life, there right and there choice and we as a family or as a society have to learn to be non-judgmental about it.