Piku: Beyond Relationships

One of the many poignant moments from Piku

With internal assessments just over, my friends and I were looking for a breath of fresh air. And it came in form of Shoojit Sircar’s endearing and pensive drama-comedy ‘Piku’. To be frank, some of us in the gang were planning for Bombay Velvet. And since I don’t like typical Bollywood masala flicks, I decided to go with Piku. And God-oh god, what a sweet surprise it turned out to be. More importantly, it made me reconsider my relationship with my father as well.

Piku is the story of a Delhi-based Bengali family’s hypochondriac, self-centered, part-senile 70 year-old man, Bhaskor Bannerjee (Amitabh Bachchan), with the compulsively chronic condition of constipation and his firm, stubborn, annoyed daughter, Piku Bannerjee (Deepika Padukone) – who frequently quarrel over ‘motion’ issues of the former. t a slice-of-life movie which deals with how a daughter, extremely busy in her work life as an architect, is doubling up as her 70 year old father's babysitter. How she deals with her father's tantrums everyday which involves tackling his arch nemesis - constipation. Both have an unconditional love towards each other, but being stubborn and head-strong as individuals, they have a disagreement on most of the trivial issues with neither of them buckling down.

The film has a very realistic and candid quality, just like Shoojit Sircar’s previous “Vicky Donor. The direction is impeccable. The subtle relationship and mutual feelings that develop between Irrfan and Deepika are very well portrayed and the director has kept this relationship open ended. Kudos for avoiding a conclusion on that relation in a conventional way. You may notice that when the real-estate broker flies in from Kolkata, he has an airline tag on his bag. This shows the attention to detail by Sircar. Words cannot do justice to the performance put up by the cast. Amitabh's portrayal of Bhaskor Banerjee is sincerely endearing and irritating enough to do justice to the character. And to the champion who gets things done easily, nicely and effortlessly- Irrfan Khan. That one scene where he goes to pick the family in the morning when the driver opts to disappear, he sits quiet and Deepika comes out to sit in front seat. You can watch it again and again, no words exchanged but the viewer totally understands and gives a sarcastic laughter. And the surprise package includes the sweet Mausami Chatterjee, with her never get rude attitude and ready to reply character. The good old Raghubir Yadav as the wonderful family homeopathic doctor. Even Jisshu Sengupta as Syed was very apt for his role. However, the scene-stealer is Deepika Padukone, who has really come a long way as an actor, and delivers a neat, matured performance. She’s fire and ice. You’ll fall in love with her. I was reminded of my physics teacher back in school, Moushmi Chatterjee; a lady who could be almost be described as ‘Piku’. The portrayal of the Bengali family as a whole is extremely realistic. And I can tell you this because I have lived in a predominantly Bengali neighborhood in a city with a high population of Bengalis. My teachers in Carmel High were Bengali as well as the local tuitions (Prasanjeet & pramanik, anyone?). Hell, even my first crush, in grade III or IV, was a Bengali. :P

The Background Score by Anupam Roy is fresh and most appealing. For the first time in Bollywood, the songs were more than just noise, they actually meant to give solace, they take you to that world where you just want the lazy journey to continue forever, with people you love, with nothing to worry about. And finally, a few words about the director of photography. Kamaljeet Sir, you deserve an award for representing the cities of Kolkata and Delhi. Having lived in Kolkata for some time, I can assure you that it is one of the best depictions of the city in recent times (Kahaani as well). La Martiniere High, the Howrah Bridge and the ‘Jhaal-Mudi’ – Oh, the nostalgia. Mayer ghat bagbazaar, where I used to sit for hours waiting for a ferry to go across Kolkata.

A very rare release, and very highly recommended. Especially in such times, where every second piece of news we read is negative and heartbreaking. 'Piku' constantly brought a smile on my face for those 2 hours. It showed exactly the way love happens...in phases!!! It builds slowly, in conversations. It is filled with lots of humour which is bound to leave you in splits. It is a very endearing story of a father-daughter relationship and the message stands out strong. Its strong Bengali essence is also brought out very well. It is surely going to tickle your funny bone and one is assured to come out of the theatre with a big satisfied smile on the face. It doesn't matter to which age group you belong, you'll be able to connect with the movie in any manner possible. 

PS: This review will continue in the 2nd part, where I will talk about how it has influenced me and made me reconsider my bond with my father.

The Big Switch

It's one of those things for which you constantly have your leg pulled. Having an old, pre-historic phone, a Blackberry. Yes, for years I had clung to the original smartphone, while the rest of the world moved on. But there comes a time when you have to decide between turning the page and closing the book. With RIM on life support, it was time for me to accept the possibility that there wouldn't be BlackBerry a year from now. And therefore I decided to take the plunge & switch to an Android.


But before we come to that, let me first list out some things which I absolutely loved on my BB: the red indicator light, the physical keyboard, BBM, its Email integration, BIS, security etc. Sadly, the LED has been replicated on most Android phones & does not remain an exclusivity. And my BBM contact list has come down to 3 or 4 people. Most of them have moved on to Whatsapp. The only thing that was keeping me from switching was the physical keyboard. While I could swear by the accuracy & speed of a physical keyboard over a touch-based one, shifting to touch wasn’t much of an issue since I had used a Galaxy Tab 2 for over 2 years. So, that left just the email, BIS and security. As far as security was concerned, android provided a basic level of encryption which was good enough for me. Also, I wouldn't be wrong if I said that Gmail™ has become the de-facto choice for mails today (not considering corporate accounts), and what better ecosystem to handle it than Android itself. And by overlooking these trivial issues, I was getting a great app eco-system (Play Store), an up-to-date OS and a modern looking device, albeit less professional. So, at the end of the day i thought that would be good tradeoff. But it turned out to be not so promising after all.

Incident 1: I was attending an admission tour conducted by Alliance Française de Bangalore on the 26th of October. I have a habit of switching to silent mode before entering gatherings such as this. Selecting ‘All Alerts off’ on a BB does the job. I selected the same no alerts option on my Moto and holstered the phone. Midway through the speech of a certain Dr. Alexandre Durant, the Moto’s alarm started sounding loudly. Turns out that the alarms do not silence themselves even if the ringer is silenced. Now there are 2 things you should know about this tone. One, it’s a highly unprofessional tone. Two, this Moto does not ring incrementally. It goes ballistic all of a sudden. Imagine my plight when Mr. Alexandre actually stopped his speech and waited for me to silence my phone. And I fumbled with the buttons, trying the power/ volume buttons & finally realizing that you had to drag a bloody icon from one end to other just to silence the phone.

Incident 2: I told a friend (whom I didn't want to talk to at that moment) that I had internals & would not be able to chat with her that night. Now I have a cousin sis whom I chat with pretty late at night. The next day, I get a message from my friend, saying that I was active till 0300 and deliberately avoiding her. You see, Whatsapp displays the time and date when a user was last active. Sigh.

Also, Whatsapp does not give the luxury of D (Delivered) and R (read) signs. No, the ticks in Whatsapp don’t stand for D & R. 1 tick stands for ‘Message delivered to server’ and 2 ticks specify ‘message delivered to device’. So, if you've been upset with your boyfriend for not responding to your message despite the two ticks and you are assuming he has read it but is busy flirting with someone else, chances are he has not. While BBM can't tell you if he is indeed cheating on you, it can tell you with certainty that the message has been read and not just delivered. I tried installing BBM on my Moto but it’s too crude and buggy. I saw tick-marks signifying non-delivery even when the recipients confirmed that the message has been received.

Other issues: The fluidity of the BB OS is not present in an Android. To make a call, I would unlock my BB, directly type the name of the contact and press the Call button. With Android, I need to Unlock, open the dialer, tap the search bar, wait for the virtual keyboard to appear, type the name of the contact, and tap on the search result to make a call. Yes, this is how difficult it is.

All in all, not a good experience. Old habits die hard. Maybe I was better off with my BB.

The Empty Nest

Moving to college was probably the biggest thing I had been looking forward to for the past two years. I spent my entire high school years wishing that I could be away from my parents, unhindered, the way I wanted myself to be. While preparing myself to go to college was probably one of the most exciting times of my life, it was bittersweet since it meant saying goodbye to my home; simultaneously preparing for this huge next phase in my life, which, I can tell you for certain, contained some of my worst and loneliest moments.

The weight of my solitude didn’t settle completely until the exact moment I left my house. As the door of the car was held open by my younger brother, I threw a longing glance back at my home. I then sank into the rear seat. Then immediately, the cars drove out, with another car carrying my mom and aunt following us. I had left Jamshedpur earlier, sometimes even for long periods, knowing that I would probably return within a week or two. But there was something different this time. This time it felt much more difficult, painful and tragic.

Jamshedpur doesn’t have an airport, so I had to go to Ranchi to catch a flight. My parents, due to time constraints, couldn't accompany me all the way. So they dropped me at the station, where I was supposed to catch the train to Ranchi. Frankly, at that moment I even thought that this was better since it would save me a lot of emotional drama at the airport. I was wrong, dead wrong. My dad, who I was very close with, said:

Come on beta, give me a hug. Pata nahin kab mil payunga…Translation: Come on Son, give me a hug. Who knows when we may meet again?

He broke off after that & for the first time in my life I saw his eyes welled up with tears. I hugged him but somehow controlled my tears, since I was young and had to maintain my image of being a ‘tough guy’. The train suddenly whistled. A part of my mind told me to jump back on to the platform. And the other, silently whispered “It’s over, my friend. It's over”.

When you are away from your parents for the first time, you will discover exactly what and how much they have done for you, no matter what you think about them now. I assure you. No matter how unsteady your relationship with your parents is, that first night you are alone, there will be a pain in your chest, a pain so heavy and miserable that you'll be tempted to tear your heart out. For some, this may be difficult to believe. It will sound stale and clichéd because so many people have already told you this. You've convinced yourself, you won't be like that. You won't long for your parents once you’re out of their grasp. But believe me, you are wrong.

The first night I was on my own, I wasn't as happy as I expected myself to be. My heart literally cried even if I kept teardrops from falling. At one point I was arranging groceries in my larder, when I clumsily dropped a gallon of oil on the floor. I spent an hour scrubbing oil from the tile. That was the last straw. I slumped onto the floor and cried my heart out.

I had been looking forward to this moment my entire high school life. I had been waiting for the day I would have no one nagging at me to clean my room, and no one forcing me to eat veggies when I had clearly declared myself to be a pure non-vegetarian. No one bursting into my room without knocking and no one getting angry with me for talking back. 

And when that day came, I felt downright miserable. I cursed myself for not being able to crack JEE with a good rank, which would have allowed me to study in my hometown. For the first time, I was alone. For the first time, I would have given anything up just to hear my mom yelling at me to drink water. I would have given up anything to hear my dad reprimand me from driving too fast, staying too late or out too long.


It took me a while to realize the fact that it would be a while before I would have anyone at all.

PS: It's been a year since and I have coped up with it, partly due to some close relatives being here. But something happened today which forced me to write this blog. To be continued...