Ever since I saw the
trailers of Piku, the characters that lingered in my mind were from the
dysfunctional family created by Upamanyu Chatterjee in his two books The Last
Burden and Way to Go. Shyamanand, the father, and head of that family, is a
Bengali, often grumpy, and excessively obsessed about his bowel movements, when
he is not shooing away his neighborhood builder Monga from trying to persuade him to sell his
house off, much like Amitabh Bachchan in the film.
Chatterjee’s books are comparatively
dark, with ruminating monologues liberally spread across the pages, making the
work seem long, monotonous, a bit vegetative, much like life itself when lead
daily across pages. Shoojit Sircar’s film, on the other hand, is a consistently
charming film, giving a progressive outlook to the Parent-Daughter dynamic. It breezes
away with an enviable lightness, riding high on the winsome performances from
its entire cast. For all I know, Shoojit and Juhi Chaturvedi might not even
know about the books, but that does not take anything away from their lovely writing
in making this road-movie a memorable, and often pleasurable, ride.
At 30, Piku is also an
important film at this point in my life, for it raises important questions
about Sons’ and Daughters’ responsibility towards their parents. Though the
film does not take the escapist route, it does well to masquerade the narrative
with sweetness again once it ensures the questions have been raised and planted
in the viewers’ minds. Other issues like the corporate greed versus the
nostalgia and longing for the one’s roots, marriage being for people of lesser
IQ, pre-marital sex, are all alluded to but never allowed to spoil the fun as
the actors and writers play one-up against each other successfully in creating
a humane comedy.
The film also has an
outsider in Irfan Khan, who finds himself in the parent-daughter bickering over
their journey from Delhi to Kolkata. In addition to providing an romantic
sub-plot to the film, Irfan Khan’s character allows the audience to warm up to
the leads, and vent out our own frustrations towards them when the going gets
tough or uncomfortably familiar to him, who is fighting his own issues with his
parents on similar lines.
Amitabh Bachchan plays a
grumpy old man who claims himself a “critical” person, but he is too much of a
father figure in general to let his sarcasm or his grumpiness hurt, while it
adds more weight to the concern he shows over his daughter. For that aura alone,
we are infinitely lucky to have him play these sorts of roles. When his
character Bhaskor Banerjee cycles his way through the streets of Kolkata,
gleeful and oblivious of his constipation or other troubles, packs himself oily
jalebis in a paper bag, I thought the film was drifting into Nebraska territory, but thankfully it ends fittingly, and almost perfectly.
On a side note, Piku also
made me a bit envious about how Bengalis are more creatively inclined, with
their culture seeped in excellent literature, films and music. I wonder if we
have suitable parallels or equals in my own language Telugu, and I also have to
blame it on myself not able to, or willing to explore great works in my native language.
This would also be one of my key take-aways from this film, to read and find
more works in Telugu.
Piku could have been a
stronger film, or a darker one, or both, but for what it is, it is still a very very good one. Don't forget to take your parents along. The film will talk to them about a lot of things you could not bring yourself to.
