Piku

About the film

Piku is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language comedy drama film directed by Shoojit Sircar, written by Juhi Chaturvedi, and produced by N. P. Singh, Ronnie Lahiri and Sneha Rajani. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone and Irrfan Khan, with Moushumi Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta and Raghubir Yadav in supporting roles. The soundtrack was composed by Anupam Roy. Principal photography began in August 2014 and was wrapped up in December.

The film was released on 8 May 2015, and garnered critical acclaim, with praise for its screenplay, humour and overall simplicity, and particular praise directed towards the performances of Bachchan, Padukone and Khan. It also emerged as a commercial success worldwide. Made on a budget of ₹42 crore (equivalent to ₹63 crore or US$6.6 million in 2023), Piku earned ₹141 crore (equivalent to ₹213 crore or US$22 million in 2023) worldwide.

Plot

Piku Banerjee (Deepika Padukone) is a 30-year-old Bengali architect who resides 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 arguments between Piku, the servants and 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 at the same time, also gets extremely irritated with him because of his eccentricities. Bhashkor has several medical tests done, but everything comes out to be normal, severely disappointing him. Ignoring Piku's vehement objections, he has also recently fired the maid for stealing phenyl, a charge that the maid opposes, and this is the fifth maid that Bhashkor has fired in the last two months. Moreover, Bhashkor is also opposed to the institution of marriage and wants Piku to take care of him to satisfy her maternal urge. He states that marriage is a low IQ decision, and that he wanted Piku's late 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.

Piku's business partner, Sayyed Afroze (Jisshu Sengupta), is a good friend of taxi business owner Rana Chaudhary (Irrfan Khan), whose taxi Piku always uses to commute to her workplace, but is notorious for being a very difficult customer. Regularly stressed both by her work and by her father's finicky behaviour, Piku criticises the taxi drivers with excessive backseat driving, due to which they lose focus and cause several car crashes. As no taxi driver at Rana's company wants to take Piku's duty, 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 the office. When Piku goes for a date with Aniket (Akshay Oberoi), Bhashkor keeps interrupting her, claiming that he has a fever, and makes such a fuss that Piku has to call his regular doctor, Dr. Srivastava (Raghuvir Yadav), and talk about Bhashkor's feces texture and temperature, causing Aniket to lose all appetite. Bhashkor also has a bit too much to drink at Chhobi Mashi's marriage anniversary party and later dances at home, which results in his blood pressure dropping and him being put on oxygen therapy, leaving Piku distraught. Elsewhere, Rana has his own family problems with his widowed mother and sister. Rana's sister stole her mother-in-law's jewellery and gave it to her mother, due to which her husband abandoned her along with their ba…

Bhashkor's relative, Nabendu (Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury), arrives from Kolkata to secure his consent to sell their ancestral home named Champakunj there. Nabendu tells that a builder is interested in the land and is willing to pay top rates, but Bhashkor objects vehemently and decides to visit Kolkata to stop the deal. Piku has to comply in accompanying him, since she cannot let him travel alone after the recent health scare. Bhashkor cannot travel by aeroplane due to his breathing problem and even refuses to travel by 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 for excretion and receive some blood circulation going in his body, but none of Rana's taxi drivers are willing to endure Piku or her father. Disappointed with the taxi company, Piku tries to book a flight to Kolkata, but Rana personally 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 the car along with a lavatory chair for Bhashkor.

Production

Shoojit Sircar's original choices of the main cast were Parineeti Chopra in the title role, Amitabh Bachchan and Irrfan Khan. These three actors were given the script. However, Chopra turned down the part. The cast of Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan and Irrfan Khan was finalised in mid-2014. In preparation for the role of Piku, Padukone learned Bengali as her character is from Bengal. There were early reports that Jisshu Sengupta was cast as the romantic lead opposite Deepika Padukone, but Sengupta plays Padukone's character's best-friend. Irrfan Khan plays the romantic lead opposite Deepika Padukone. Bachchan essays the role of Piku's father, while Moushumi Chatterjee portrays Piku's maternal aunt. Akshay Oberoi was cast in a cameo.

Key details