Film Review - Piku, a film of Bengali eccentricities

You have to give it to Deepika Padukone! Sandwiched between two stalwarts, Amitabh Bachchan and Irrfan Khan, she struck out and carved for herself to be acknowledged as a remarkable actress with an unforgettable role as Piku, in the film by the same name, directed by Soojit Sarkar.

Depicted as they come, a serious Bengali girl who is an Architect in Delhi, Piku is single, unmarried yet and a care giver to her 70 year old father, Bhaskor Banerjee, played by Amitabh Bachchan. Bhaskor is inflicted with a condition often a problem with aging people called constipation. Had it remained at that, it would have been fine but it has the Bengali twist to it, that being, constipation has become an obsession with the senior. From morning to night, breakfast to dinner, all conversations are around constipation!

Poor Piku! Needless to say, she is in the thick of having to listen to it and handle her father’s bowel condition, day in and day out. Being a dutiful daughter, she does not show resentment although a war of words ensues every now and then between the two.

Syed Afroz  played by Jisshu Sengupta is a good friend, although her Boss too at work and Piku and he could have made a good partnership, had Bhaskor not played dirty, like most Bengali single, to be read, widowed/widower father was not so selfish. He wanted Piku only to himself.

In the meantime, it is decided that the family house in Kolkata must be sold and Piku and Bhaskor, set off on a long journey to Kolkata by car! Bhaskor is mortally afraid of both Plane and Train, because, he is paranoid that his bowels which are already so reluctant will now create havoc for him.

Come Rana Chaudhary played by Irrfan Khan, the man who is a Civil Engineer but has had to settle to his father’s business of running a taxi service, after being cheated in the Gulf, by taking a job there, but made to do something else. He returned as soon as he could and then, took up his father’s business.

Through the long and quintessential journey from Delhi to Kolkata, Bhaskor and Piku get fond of him and find that even after arriving at Kolkata, they are averse to leaving him. But Rana must return soon to be followed by Piku  - alone.

Having given up the idea of selling the Kolkata house, Bhaskor overdoes his fun moments in Kolkata and leaves all of a sudden for his swargloka, happy as a lark, having had his full measure of fun and also having then forgotten all about his constipation.

Deepika returns to Delhi and its business as usual, with a difference! A game of badminton between Piku and Irrfan is indicative of things to come, in future, perhaps!

This review will remain incomplete with the mention of Chaubi Mashi, played by Moushumi Chatterjee, who is Piku’s maternal aunt, always visiting the family and never stopping to deride Bhaskor Bannerjee, Amitabh Bachchan, her brother-in-law in the film for causing the early death of her sister, by his constant idiosyncrasies.

I give 4 STAR to the film if you are to look at it from the Bengali point of view. It does a wonderful job! But if you are to look at the larger mass, I would give it only 2 STAR, because, unless you knew Bangla and their absolute eccentricities, it would be a film that could not have been watched at all!

Having said that, the director missed out on another Bengali idiosyncrasy, that being gorom joler kulkucchi – a warm water gargle.  But then that may be in the making of Piku II.

OMG!

Cast

Amitabh Bachchan as Bhashkor Banerjee

Deepika Padukone as Piku Banerjee[5]

Irrfan Khan as Rana Chaudhary

Moushumi Chatterjee as Chaubi Mashi

Balendra Singh as Budhan

Raghuvir Yadav as Dr. Srivastava

Jisshu Sengupta as Syed Afroz

Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury as Nabendu

Akshay Oberoi in a cameo

Maushumi Chatterjee boasts of her role in Piku: Click Here

Mago Jaio Na!

Picture Credit: Panchali Sengupta, Kolkata, India

Ma go Jaio Na – Don’t leave us and go away, Mother!

She visits us only once every year. It is looked forward to by Indians all over the world and for Bengal and Bangla people in India and the world, it is one festival that brings all and everybody together in celebrations. 

In Shillong too, for days before the pujas, there is an air of celebration in the air. When I was a child, I got over four new dresses for every day of the celebration. The dog in the house got a warm water bath and scrub and a new collar. Our dogs were registered with the Shillong Municipality Office and had a number given to them, in case they got lost or ‘stolen’.

For all four days of the celebration, our kitchen was closed and we all ate at the pujo mandol (tent) and our dog ate at house, his normal, meat soup and rice. Only Zarak was vegetarian – he ate only rice and dhal! Imagine, for the size of a lion, Zarak refused meat! Unbelievable!

The pujas happened in the Jail Road Boys High School and many other places. Our family, visited everywhere but participated at the Jail Road puja because it was closest to our house.

Every year, when the pujas were over, Shunu carried the gigantic idol of Durga ma, and her children, Ganesa, Lakshmi, Saraswati and Kartika, along with the asura and lion on his shoulders along with three other men on her journey to the river, where she would be immersed, to symbolise to her return to her ‘husband’s house, Sivaloka!

The earth visiting deity came once from her husband’s house to destroy the evil in the earth. The earth is her mother’s home! Symbolic of creation, the earth, is Ma Durga’s . 

That year, when Laika and I sat near the washing area, behind the kitchen to watch Shunu take Ma Durga on his shoulders, to the river, was the year, that finally put a stamp on my fate, as my Mashis, my mother’s younger sisters were going out of Shillong. I was to be sent to boarding school. My crime?

Laika and I were engaged in a kissing act, which had been banned! Needless to say, we were caught in the act by Shunu, as he was passing by with the goddess on his shoulder. Since our house was clearly visible from the road, Shunu had seen me and Laika ‘in the act’!

Actually, this cute participation between us was only an excuse. My family was worried that I may get an infection, but the fact is: where there is love, there is no fear of infection.

My mother had left for her first employment, my mashi was to be married and would leave for Bombay, my youngest aunt had got admitted to a College attached to the University of London and she would be leaving soon. Naturally, I was to be sent away to the boarding school in Shillong.

Like Shunu, who chanted, continuously as he carried the idol on his shoulders, I too had pleaded in tears, when I saw my mother, leave for her job:

“Ma go, jaio na! – Mother, don’t leave me and go!”




Memories from childhood, by Julia Dutta, in anticipation of Terry and His Little Brothers.

Picture credit: Panchali Sengupta in Kolkata, India

Film review: Chitrangada by Rituparno Ghosh

To begin with, let me warn my readers that I am not a film critique, but write about films which affect me deeply.

Rituparno Ghosh’s Chitrangada is a film which addresses the gender, gender transformation, crossing bodies and boundaries of mind and body, physically, psychologically and emotionally in a compelling way.

The main protagonist in the film are Rituparno (Rudie)  and Partho, who are part of a Drama society and fall in love with each other. Their relationship continues to flourish until Partho becomes a victim of drugs. Thereafter the relationship is rigged with uncertainties and really Rudie wants to set himself free of the relationship, but neither he nor Partho, is actually able to do so. In days when things were better, Rudie and he had discussed living together in a house and adopting a child. Rudie was willing to change his sex to become a woman, in order that they could go ahead to adopt the child, in a country (India) that does not allow same sex lovers to adopt children. The logic was that if Rudie changed his sex, then they could marry and adopt a child. While the plan was being executed by Rudie, to Partho’s distaste, he found himself revolted by the new Rudie, in sex transformation, for he argued, that he loved Rudie just the way he was and he could not really connect with this ‘new’ person, and if he did want a woman, then, he would prefer a real one than an ‘artificial one’. In a way, even as the last steps to complete change over, is almost complete, the film takes the viewer into a journey that is beyond words!

Partho is moving out of Rudie’s life as Rudie struggles with the idea that all that he was doing was to make their relationship, more total and rather like ‘man, woman and child’ like a stereotypical family, despite his coming to terms with his new reality, well almost, he is left with himself only to take that last step to take the final jump and be totally transformed from the body of a man to a woman. But, then, an array of happenings pushes the boundaries of the viewer’s thoughts is the most profound manner.

There is that struggle at the psychological level. The Councelor/friend/alter ego, Shubho, who helps Rudie in his decisions often playing the devil’s advocate, his parents, who through their own struggle to come to terms with the fact that their son is gay, must still have another battle to win - his need to transform his gender to the opposite reality of a woman. Through tears and anger, they are still able to find peace in themselves, knowing that the ‘the nature of a being, has its own desire to express its own reality’ and no matter what, Rudie is their son/whoever else he feels comfortable to be. His mother is profound – I gave birth to this body, which is yours, I have a right to know, whatever goes on in this body. I have a right to know, if it is changing, transforming…”

But as the last day dawns, or as the light of Usha burns close to dawn, the viewer is taken to yet another paradigm, where psychology, body, emotions meet the last gate before one steps over threshold of  ordinary understanding and enters the philosophical.

All is impermanence, things are always changing, the reality we know now is no more in the next, everything is in fleeting. Change is the only permanent thing and therefore, if in the body of a man, exists a woman ready to take birth, then in that new body too will be another reality, that will seek its birth and so on and so forth, on and on, because, not that the body is changing, transforming, but reality is forever, changing, and what is ‘natural’ today, may not be the same tomorrow, or even in the next minute, for truth is an ever changing reality. And hence, what then is the meaning of the new realities, for they too are in transition, here, now and gone the next. The wandering soul must find its Home, here and now.

Having travelled though a mire of thoughts, actions, Freudian psychology, for me the film ended in a rather philosophical note and brought home the point that that there is no better ‘home’ than what is available now, and all else is but the mind which must chance upon different domains of reality, in order that it may finally arrive home.

Warning: Before you see the film, be sure your knowledge on gender issues is updated, your sensibility to gay desires of body and mind are progressive, your knowledge fund on Freud and psychology has been greased and oiled and your brush with philosophy is not vague and abysmally low.

Then and then only, the genius of the film which is highly intellectual in nature with an extraordinary display of showmanship, can be relished like an evening out for high tea and discussions thereafter.

Film : Chitrangada

Starring : Rituparno Ghosh, Jishu Sengupta, Anjan Dutta, Dipankar De, Anasuya Majumdar, Raima Sen & others.

Producer : Shree Venkatesh Films.

Presenter : Shrikant Mohta & Mahendra Soni

Written & Directed by : Rituparno Ghosh.
Language : Bengali & English with English subtitles

To know more on the original Tagore’s Chitrangada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitr%C4%81ngad%C4%81