Shoojit Sircar's Piku

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.