Piku

Piku......motion se hi emotion

And its true to a T. As everyone has a rough idea, Bhaskor Banerjee (Amitabh Bachchan) has constipation. Piku (Deepika Padukone) is his working daughter, who takes care of his medical needs, his complaints, suggestions and erratic whims. Even after being irritated in her workplace meetings and date nights by Dad's complaints of colour and consistency of constipated stool, she puts up with him ------ how can you possibly make your big baby understand that what he's doing is irrational? He wants her to be a strong independent woman and not marry somewhere from where she couldn't take care of him during his needs. She wants him to stop whining all the time worrying unnecessarily about his health conditions (which seem normal except for the disturbed motion of the digestive tract).

Bhaskor Banerjee in many ways is a regular 70-year-old disease-riddled hypochondriac dad. His complaints and childish tantrums and weird discussions in front of other people gets to her daughter. But she remains silent; however her eyes scream in protest. After some time, her lips bend into a smile and she shakes her head, thinking about his silly notions and whimsical behaviour.

Then there is Rana, the cab company owner who drives the father-daughter duo to their hometown Kolkata. During their road trip, as Rana's twisted logic and cracky solutions begin to soften the bickering between the family members, the constipation condition starts to get better. Dad becomes better to reason with. Daughter opens up and relaxes. In many ways Rana acts as catalyst in the rebonding of emotions between them.

The famous cycling of Bhaskor shahib in the streets of Kolkata follow. He feels at home. He feels energised. He becomes happy. On returning home, he proclaims that it is his best day ever. And as you guessed it, is emotion se bhi motion juri hui hain. Best day ever equals to.....you know.

What happens in the end? I'm not going to tell that. That's for the viewers to find out. Dining table discussions of shit, road discussions of shit.....you get the general idea. Shit is everywhere. It is a very light hearted film  with a very strong delivery of unconditional love. Yes, that kind of love does exist. For inspite of many flaws, Bhaskor Banerjee is Piku's best man ever. Every person watching this piece of art will definitely identify himself or herself with it.

Another thing of mention is the flawless acting by the best of actors in this age. I'll be surprised if one of them doesn't win an award for this. Shoojit Sircar has once again delivered his level best, and we as hindi cinema fans are grateful for his filmmaking gifts. Anupam Roy wins our bong hearts with pleasant naturalistic music in The Journey Song and Bezubaan.

It's a perfect movie for a weekend watch. Missing it would be a considerable loss. Grab your family, your friends, or just grab yourself and a tub of popcorn as you laugh and say "aww" and wipe a tear away. You won't regret it.

 

My dwindling addiction to internet

Internet was one of the things that was close to magic for me. To me, magic is a form of advanced science that we don't yet understand. When I was 12 years old, I just didn't understand how I could reach the world with just logging on to a computer. Sure, computer helped me do my work and it also included games and Paint and movies and music, but to be connected to the world just a click away? Seemed surreal at the time. I have to admit, i still don't understand the technology behind WWW and LAN and WiFi, but they are no longer magic. They are facts that have become a necessity in our daily lives which we cannot live without. Our information encyclopedia is in our gadgets, bringing knowledge from around the world as we speak. We study, make our projects, read books and talk to people on the internet. In a nutshell, internet is a part of our lives. But it was not so.....10 years ago.

Just as a layman would get hooked to something he doesn't understand yet finds fascinating, I also was hooked to it. Whenever I got the chance I would sneak up to the computer table and turn the LAN connection on. However at first, my addiction was intertwined with frustration. Such slow internet connection with the google page opening up in no less than 30 seconds was enough to turn my patience into ashes. But that even made me more hooked. I opened up all the websites of my fantasies and emailed my friends, sending and receiving pictures so dear to me at the time. I didn't have to telephone or say anything to a person I know. I just emailed them and they emailed me back. Writing became my favourite hobby, or should I say typing!

That was until social networking sites came along. I came across Orkut but could not understand what it was meant for. All I knew was that my friends were there and I could chat with them. Two people talking back and forth like real talking......now that was something! By the time I got used to the ways of Orkut, I had not realised my friends were leaving that site. I heard they had moved on to a similar kind of website known as Facebook. After stalling for some time (because I loved Orkut), I joined the mega social networking. Sure, I admit I had a hard time figuring my way around because it was more complex than Orkut, but I succeeded eventually. It was a blast: once I understood it, it was the best website to connect to people.

I became more and more familiar and addicted to Facebook partly because of its amazing features, and partly because I was in a relationship for the first time. We didn't get to meet much, and so we connected out there, which was cool. He was an amazing artist, his sketches were a class in its own.....so I kept a watchful eye over his picture folders to catch the latest addition. All in all, I had a great time.....but the decline of the whole situation had just begun which I didn't realise.

Because of my constant talking and communicating over the internet, I forgot how to talk to him when I was with him. I didn't know what to say to him, through my own mouth! It was as if I was there to observe him, then I would go home and pour my heart out by typing away in Facebook. It got way out of hand, and my studies were suffering in the most crucial year of my whole life. One bad result in the exam would diminish my chances by a large margin of being something successful in life. So I controlled myself and got the hell out of the whole internet business addiction thing for good, just until my exams were over that is. I still did Facebook but for limited time for limited things. Internet ceased to be my pastime. My boyfriend did not perceive this diminished contact very well, so drifts became apparent in our relationship. This continued for almost a year. Due to my internet addiction, I was only a girlfriend on digital terms, but in real social life, I wasn't even a person he could freely talk to. Same was he for me. With time, as I broke off from the internet, we broke apart too. Funny how we broke up on the internet and never saw each other again.

That was the moment. After that time, I was no longer addicted or nearly as interested by the internet as I once was. I got good scores, made to a great college, and forgot what it was like feeling high while being online. There was a time when I could not pass three hours before checking Facebook. Now I can go on for more than three days without realising I have not checked my notifications the whole time.

My addiction has faded. My interest hasn't however, but it is significantly lower. It may have been due to my break up, or may have been due to the one year break I had from the internet. It was hard, staying away from it for most of the day, but as I put a year into that, it became easier. Maybe because the internet had become so familiar with our lives that there was nothing new left to explore. All these reasons are partly responsible for my dwindling addiction to internet. I am a fan of socially intermixing with people, and internet can never replace that. Real relationships with people are everlasting, and I prefer that to a temporary friendship in the digital world, every time you ask me!

Internet is awesome, sure, but not worth your addiction. That's my last comment.