Piku

Story:

Piku is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language comedy drama film directed by Shoojit Sircar and produced by N. P. Singh, Ronnie Lahiri and Sneha Rajani. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone and Irrfan Khan in titular roles, while Moushumi Chatterjee and Jisshu Sengupta appear in pivotal roles. The script was written by Juhi Chaturvedi and Anupam Roy composed the music and wrote the lyrics. Principal photography began in August 2014 and was wrapped up in December.

PLOT

Piku Banerjee (Deepika Padukone) is a Bengali architect residing in Chittaranjan Park, Delhi, along with her 70-year-old widowed father, Bhashkor Banerjee (Amitabh Bachchan). The hypochondriac Bhashkor has problems with chronic constipation and traces the root of every problem to his bowel movements. His habits often lead to quarrels with their servant, Budhan (Balendra Singh), and also irritates Piku’s maternal aunt, Chhobi Mashi (Moushumi Chatterjee), who often visits them.

Piku loves her father and, as her mother has died, takes good care of him, but gets extremely irritated with him at times because of his eccentricities. Bhashkor has many medical tests done, but everything comes out to be normal, severely disappointing him. He has also recently fired the housemaid, ignoring Piku’s vehement objections, for stealing phenyl, a charge that the maid opposes, and this is the fifth maid that Bhashkor has fired in the last two months. Piku’s business partner, Sayyed Afroze (Jisshu Sengupta) is a good friend of her, and she is a regular client of the taxi business of Sayyed’s friend, Rana Chaudhary (Irrfan Khan). Piku’s company uses Rana’s taxi to commute her to the office, but Piku is notorious for being a very difficult customer.

Regularly stressed both by her work and by her father’s finicky behaviour, Piku criticises the drivers with excessive backseat driving, due to which they lose focus and cause several car crashes. No taxi driver at Rana’s company wants to take Piku’s duty due to her irritating nature. Rana complains to Sayyed, but Piku brushes both of them off, offended by Rana’s rude nature, and tells Sayyed that she is taking a break from office. Bhashkor is opposed to the institution of marriage and wants Piku to take of him as her child to satisfy her maternal urge.

Bhashkor states that marriage is a low IQ decision, and that he wanted Piku’s mother to be independent, but she wasted her life in the service of him. Bhashkor also criticises Chhobi Maashi for marrying thrice and states that her own daughter, Eisha (Rupsa Banerjee), was never a priority for her. Meanwhile, Rana has his own family problems with his mother and sister. Rana’s sister stole her mother-in-law’s jewelleries and gave it to her mother, due to which her husband has now abandoned her along with her baby.

Soon, Piku goes for a date with Aniket (Akshay Oberoi), but Bhashkor keeps interrupting her stating that he has a fever, and makes such a fuss that Piku has to call Bhashkor’s regular doctor, Dr. Srivastava (Raghuvir Yadav), and talk about Bhashkor’s feces texture and temperature, causing Aniket to lose all appetite. Further, Bhashkor has a bit much to drink at Chhobi Mashi’s marriage anniversary party, resulting in his blood pressure to drop and he to be put on oxygen therapy the next day, leaving Piku distraught.

Bhashkor’s relative, Nabendu (Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury), comes from Champakunj, Kolkata to secure his consent to sell the ancestral home there. Nabendu states that a real estate developer is interested in the land and is willing to pay top rates, but Bhashkor objects vehemently and decides to visit Kolkata. Piku has to comply in accompanying him, since she cannot let him travel alone. Bhashkor cannot go by airplane due to his breathing problem, and even refuses to take a train as he receives constipation due to all the rhythmic movement. Bhashkor decides to travel by road, so that he can stop wherever he wants and receive some blood circulation going in his body, but none of Rana’s taxi drivers are willing to endure Piku or her eccentric father.

A disappointed Piku decides to book a flight to Kolkata, but soon, Rana arrives at their home to take the family to Kolkata himself, without informing his mother and sister about the trip. Rana is puzzled when he finds loads of baggage being loaded onto his taxi, along with a lavatory chair for Bhashkor. Rana refuses to drive with Budhan in the front seat and only agrees when Piku sits in the front. During the road trip to Kolkata, the group encounters many incidents, including Rana on the verge of losing patience due to Bhashkor’s fussy behaviour and his constipation. Piku finds a large knife in Rana’s car trunk. Bhashkor insists that Rana has to throw the knife away or else he would not travel by the car. Rana pleads that the knife was kept by drivers for their road traffic safety, but eventually has to compromise and throw the knife away.

During discussion, Rana reveals that he is an engineer and had a job in civil construction in Saudi Arabia. He was made to work as security guard on the site, despite being offered a job as project manager. When he protested, he was fired and that is when Rana returned to India to manage his late father’s business. They spend the night in Varanasi where Rana shares a room with Piku and Bhashkor, as all other rooms are full, and he refuses to sleep in the car. The next morning, Bhashkor tries Indian toilet-sitting style upon Rana’s suggestion, which does not seem to help either.

The group finally reaches Kolkata, where Bhashkor’s younger brother and sister-in-law still live in their ancestral house, and Bhashkor asks Rana to stay for a day. Piku and Rana spend time with each other in the city and gradually grow close. Rana also subtly hints Piku to not sell the house during a discussion. The next day, Rana leaves Kolkata after requesting Bhashkor to stop his eccentricities which he eventually agrees to. Piku changes her mind and decides not to sell the house.

Meanwhile, Bhashkor’s sudden desire to bicycle increases after Dr. Srivastava gives him the news of a Japanese bicyclist having died at the age of 99. He ends up bicycling through a part of the city alone, leaving everyone tensed since Bhashkor did not inform anyone about it. When Bhashkor returns, Piku berates him for eating street food and for being irresponsible, but Bhashkor simply states that his constipation is cleared, and he that needs to bicycle every day. He also remembers Rana, who had advised him to eat everything and not be choosy and picky about food. Piku is secretly happy but does not emote much.

The next day, however, everyone discovers that Bhashkor has died in his sleep, probably from sleep apnea or cardiac arrhythmia. Piku states that Bhashkor always wished for a peaceful death, and that his only health problem was constipation which was also cleared on the day before his death. She returns to Delhi, where she arranges Bhashkor’s funeral.

While there, Dr. Srivastava reveals to Piku that Sayyed, too, has constipation and Bhashkor was aware about it for a long time, causing Piku to break up with him. A few days later, Piku pays up whatever due she owes Rana and he appreciates her for having ideally taken care of her father with devotion and patience, unlike any other daughter. Piku renames the Delhi house “Bhashkor Villa” in her father’s memory, and the maid, who had left due to Bhashkor’s tantrums, returns to work. The film ends with a scene of Piku playing badminton with Rana in the courtyard in front of her house.