With Vicky Donor and now Piku, writer Juhi Chaturvedi has proved that an offbeat, non-mainstream film can also score both critical acclaim and box office success. Chaturvedi had a chat with Mihir Fadnavis to discuss the origins of the film and the themes enveloping it.
Q: How did the story idea of Piku
come about? Did you draw any instances from your own life?
Juhi Chaturvedi: During the time of Vicky Donor, Shoojit Sircar and I were
casually talking about the fact that given the nuclear family culture of the modern
times, the responsibility of taking care of parents is now completely on
children.
I come from a ‘hum apni doctori khud kar lete hein’ kind of a family. My grandfather was an interesting person. Very highly educated, but with age, I saw him becoming more and more like a kid. I saw the way my parents dealt with his health issue, sometimes genuine bowel problems, at times simply age related hypochondria. And now for last few years, my father has been living with us and I am dealing with his age and requirements. But having said that, there is a Bhashkor equivalent in every family.
Q: The film has so many heavy duty elements, all rendered in lightness
and humor - what was the biggest challenge in cracking such a script? And did
your advertising background help make this script better in any way?
JC: You know people in real life are multi dimensional. No one is a
single layer. Lives that we lead aren’t uni dimensional either. All the heavy
duty elements are present in our lives too, its just that when we are in it, living
it, we fail to see the humor in it. And Piku
had to be like a hidden camera showing us our own lives. What people are
laughing at while seeing Piku, isn’t
it what they are living at a certain level? Advertising background helped me to
an extent that it has taught me to value my words. Every written word, even a
throwaway one, must make sense from the story and character’s language point of view,
and I was watchful of that.
Q: It is so rare for a Hindi film to portray women as their real selves.
Piku in the film is such a refreshingly strong female character. Why do you
think Bollywood constantly continues to fail at this and regress back to the
80’s? Is the audience to blame for this as well?
JC: I don’t think audience can be blamed for
the lack of depth or meat in the characters that a film shows. They are not
filmmakers. It’s our responsibility to constantly feed them with progressive
content. Piku is a 2015 film. And I really
believe that there are families where daughters have a right to express their
opinion, argue, they have freedom to live their lives as they want to and
transparency to discuss their desires and dreams openly. I genuinely believe in
every word that Bhashkor has spoken about women. I believe Piku’s strength is
coming from Bhashkor, the extremely educated and progressive environment that he
has provided to her. Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Vivekananda, Sarojini Naidu, we were a
nation of progressive men and women. I just want to remind people of that.
Q: The father-daughter equation in the film is beautifully liberal. Do
you foresee an Indian society in the future where a father is kind of ok with
his daughter in a casual sexual relationship? And did you expect any audience
backlash for writing such a ‘blasphemous’ thing?
JC: The number of 60/70 plus elderly people watching the film with their
young children in the halls, laughing, crying, applauding in the end shows that
there isn’t any backlash. Lets look at the bigger point that Bhashkor is trying
to make. Marriage is not wrong but without a purpose it’s a low IQ decision. As a father he doesn’t want Piku to
throw away her identity and self respect in the fire while taking saat pheras.
There is some sense in that. He holds women and marriage in a very high regard
actually. Why should audience object to that?
Q: Were there any ‘road trip films’ that influenced this script?
JC: I don’t really consume much content.
Journey was a small part of the film, a technicality to get them from Delhi to
Kolkata. Staying true to the characters was my only focus. Be it at home or on
the road.
Q: The father’s death in the end was a bittersweet ironic plot point of
helping Piku move on. Other than the father’s death, did you and Shoojit
explore any other resolution of Piku being liberated at the end?
JC: I think that death of a parent is an
eventuality that we hate to even think of. Just the thought of it can bring
tears to ones eyes. But it’s a truth that one has to face. It had to be shown
in the film. A harsh reality. Only then Bhashkor’s efforts of making his
daughter so strong would’ve come out. In her father’s absence also, she doesn’t
throw herself at Rana. The confidence with which she says that ‘itna to prepare
kar ke gaye hein baba mujhe’ says it all. Piku might not have Bhashkor interfering in her life but will that make Piku a different person, perhaps
not. She is going to live by the values that Bhashkor has brought her up with.
Q: The final shot of the film is one of the most unexpected, well
balanced and subtle climaxes to have come from the industry. Again, a rarity.
Did you have to fight with the studio or the director to maintain the ending
JC: Not at all. In fact a big credit
goes to Sneha Rajani of Sony to be able see Shoojit’s vision. There is a
certain temperament of the film and you can not suddenly change that because we
are usually used to a definite ending in our films. But then, Piku is more like
two hours from someone’s life.
Q: Your favourite film writers and directors?
JC: Satyjit Ray, Asghar Farhadi, Abbas
Kiarostami, Woody Allen, Wong Kar-wai, Anurag Kashyap, Mira Nair, Jhumpa Lahiri
- so many - and of course Shoojit Sircar.
Q: What do you plan to do next? And when do we get to see it?
JC: For now just some thinking, badminton,
running maybe. The new film will happen when it happens.
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