I had no idea what “Piku” was about. All I knew is the film starred Deepika Paduknone, Amitabh Bachchan and Irrfan Khan. The film is directed by Shoojit Sircar, whose previous film “Vicky Donor,” I enjoyed watching. The other bit of information I knew was that Juhu Chaturvedi wrote the story of “Piku” and “Vicky Donor.”
Piku Banerji (Deepika Padrone) is a young professional woman who lives with her 70 year old father Bhaskor Banerji (Amitabh Bachchan) in Delhi. She juggles her personal and professional life with a certain degree of stress. The father’s whole life revolves around his “constipated” state of health and how to overcome it. Everything in life is connected to your stomach is the father’s philosophy. He is such a worry wart that he drives his entire household nuts with his singular preoccupation with his constipated state of affairs. “Elvis Presley died of constipation,” he points out.
The real fun starts when father and daughter decide to go on a road trip from Delhi to Kolkata. The aim is to visit their old family home in Kolkata and take care of some property related affairs. Irrfan is roped to drive the duo. He is the owner of a taxi service company. How they reach Kolkata and what happens next is what “Piku” is about.
This is a heartwarming and delightful story that reminds me of my relationship with my father and our roads trip and loud disagreements on a whole range of issues. “I gave you full freedom,” says Banerji to his daughter and I was instantly reminded of my dad saying the same thing. I bet you I am not the only one who was reminded of their father and those crazy road trips in India.
“Piku” is not your regular Bollywood masala film with fights and duets and people running down mountains or around tress. This is a warm and delightful story filled with all sorts of warts about a father-daughter relationship. I was laughing so hard that I had tears streaming down my cheeks at one point. I was not the only one, the rest of the audience in the theatre were laughing out loud and clearly had a great time watching the film.
“Piku” releases May 8, 2015 in San Francisco Bay area.
The Kamla Show 