Piku: relationships redefined

                                       Piku: relationships redefined

                A rare weekend! Two days, two movies! Bombay Velvet and Piku. The movies, directors, actors : as different from each other as chalk and cheese! Bombay Velvet is Mumbai trying to be Chicago and getting nowhere! Piku tries nothing, except being real and takes you on an almost surreal journey!             

                Piku, a pretty, bong girl, kohl lined eyes and black bindi, comes from CR Park where she resides with her retired father, played by Amitabh. Deepika as Piku is the quintessential aggressive daughter of a cantankerous, obsessive Bengali father and she steals your heart, virtually from the word go! It is a realistic portrayal of an urbane, professional middle class girl who is exasperated and irritable enough to resent her father's excessive control on her life, but loving and caring enough to measure his BP on an hourly basis and make calls to the family doctor to seek medical advice on his temperature showing a rising trend, peaking at 98.8 degrees Fahrenheit! All this in the middle of a date! Repeatedly! Her daily harangues with the taxi service guys are a direct result of her irritation over the unidirectional conversations with her hypochondriac father! His preoccupation with his bowel movement is actually the central theme of the movie and only Soojit Sircar could have pulled it off! But isn't he the master of unusual themes like sperm donation and now, potty! He must really be potty! 

                Piku's love for her fussy, obstinate and obsessive father knows no boundaries! She takes him to Kolkata from Delhi by road, with the Jugad commode tied on the overhead carrier! I don't know many girls who would do this for their fathers, but she is an exceptionally devoted daughter! She screams and frets, indulges in regular diatribes with him, but does what he wants! Irrfan as the cab service owner/ substitute driver provides a perfect balance to the highly strung and hyper father- daughter duo! There is Mausmi masi, who is thrice married and wouldn't mind a fourth go at it, but loves her loony Jija, despite blaming him, in a light hearted way for her sister's early demise! What follows is a crazy journey till the barmy cuckoos land in Kolkata! Irrfan takes over the film at this stage, where, without batting an eyelid, he delivers a lecdem on the merits of the Indian style potty over the western one! The movie has an unexpected ending, but there really was no solution to the situation other than what Soojit Sircar crafts, so brilliantly! 

                 The commode reminded me of my Nani's contraption from the 1970s. The acting is superb. Amitabh as a cantankerous Bengali is very convincing and natural in the act (must be a result of 45 years of training in the art by another Bengali at home-- wink, wink). But it is Deepika who takes the cake. She acts effortlessly and is clearly symbolic of the modern Indian girl, "needing" a man in her life but doing her duty towards an ailing father, even though the ailment is mostly imaginary and restricted to the mind or the bowels! I loved Irrfan for various reasons- Not least because his character, Chowdhary hails from Hardoi! Sandila, to be precise! This movie defines relationships in modern times and touches your heart in so many ways, that my eyes were moist! All through the film!