Role of the writer

It’s been a couple of weeks since the release of Shoojit Sircar’s sleeper-hit Piku . While it boasts of splendid performances by its heavyweight cast, it is writer Juhi Chaturvedi who has emerged as the brightest star of the film. This is rare for the faceless film writers of Bollywood who normally vanish after they’re done with the script. Even if the film does turn out to be a success, it is rarely credited to them. “A friend says he doesn’t care because he moves on to the next script. He has convinced himself that if this is how he’s going to be treated, then he might as well make money. For the stars, the director is the most important person, and for the director, his stars. A lot of the time the writer is just hanging around,” says Chaturvedi.

This is her third collaboration with Sircar, the first being the delightful Vicky Donor (2012), which dealt with sperm donation in a typical middle-class Delhi milieu. Their partnership, however, goes way back to their advertising days. Yet, when Chaturvedi pitched the idea of making an entire film on sperm donation, she feared her naiveté had cost her a relationship. “Shoojit laughed and said I’ll call you back. I wasn’t sure if I had just ruined the friendship,” she recalls. Today, none of her ideas shock Sircar. He even ensures that she’s involved at every stage of making the film. It’s no wonder then that Chaturvedi hasn’t looked elsewhere for work.

After a night of celebrating the success of Piku , Chauturvedi has a string of interviews lined up at her Worli apartment the next morning. Much like Piku , the protagonist of her film played by Deepika Padukone, she too lives with her father. He’s already seen the film once, and has approved. But today he is getting dressed to go watch it once again, this time with an old friend. “He’s taking his friend who is an 85-year-old man who can barely walk,” she says, with a smile. “It is encouraging to see people walk into the cinema hall after 30 years. Somebody else told me their family watched a film together after 15 years and want to see it again. Another person said he hadn’t spoken to his daughter in many years, but gave her a call after seeing this,” she adds.

You might say these are emotional reactions to a film that essentially revolves around poo. Bhaskor Banerjee, played by Amitabh Bachchan, is a difficult, old Bengali man who goes into graphic details while analysing his daily motions. He doesn’t think twice before calling his daughter who’s out on a date to inform her that his poop resembled mango pulp. And Piku doesn’t mind discussing it either, even as her date gags at the opposite end of the table. “If you’re an old person or have a small kid at home I think the morning begins with certain things. There is no scope of being grossed out. You’re always talking about aaj kitni hui, kaise hui, kitni baar hui aur kya colour thi ,” says Chaturvedi.

“Constipation and hypochondria came more as a character build-up. That was secondary. The film was clearly about a father-daughter relationship. Parents are getting more dependent on their children because they live in nuclear families and you don’t have chacha-chachis to take care of your emotional needs. There are so many women handling the house, parents, and work. So much so that their own life is on hold,” she adds.

Chaturvedi admits she has a special corner for her women characters and gives them the respect they deserve. Her Piku is described as ‘sexually independent and financially independent’. And in a refreshing change, her father is in no rush to get her married off. It is a “low IQ decision,” he hollers. “If I had a chance I would like to do some progressive writing. I don’t believe that all a woman has to do is please a boy. There’s more to life than that. I think that women are way ahead and are way stronger.”

A stand-out feature in all of Chaturvedi’s work is her nuanced understanding of communities. While Bhaskor’s temperament is like many 70-plus men with ailments, she says it made sense to make him a Bengali. “It just added the quirk,” she says. It’s also a world she’s familiar with. “Champakunja (the name of Banerjee’s ancestral home in the film) was the name of our house in Lucknow. In the first floor we had Bengali tenankts and I was almost raised there. Things like cutting the fish, learning all the Rabindrasangeet songs and dancing to them — a lot of it has remained as a visual memory in my mind.” Similarly, Vicky and sperm-clinic owner Dr Chaddha just had to be Punjabi. They were created from her memories of living in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar a few years back.

Chaturvedi already has new ideas for Sircar. She says 18 years of creating 40-second commercials for agencies like Ogilvy and Mather, Bates and McCann has exhausted her. “I did advertising for the audience and client. But now it is my turn. I want to write for myself. This is like a meditation phase for me,” she says.

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