Bollywood Bandwagon: Flushing out stereotypes, with Piku

Bollywood Bandwagon by Bharat Gupta: Flushing out stereotypes, with Piku

What do you get when you sit for a little over two hours watching a Bollywood legend, a diva and a critically acclaimed star share the same screen? Definitely not irritable bowels! Though the central theme of the story did revolve around Bhashkor’s (Amitabh Bachchan) constant struggle with constipation, this cinematic experience for the general public most definitely flushed out any doubt that Bollywood is just an over the top entertainer.

Entertainer it is. Larger than life ventures by Dharma Productions, YRF’s emotional crusades or even Anurag Basu’s passionate endeavors, Indian Cinema creates its own niche audience for whatever genre of film it decides to release. But what Piku has successfully done is that is has rubbed off what was classified as different types of cinema for the masses and the classes. It didn’t need flying cars and heinous fight sequences, it didn’t need a life threatening ailment and it also didn’t need a relevant social issue to hit the right chord; all it required were everyday issues in a simple setting.

It might not be a multi crore hit, it might not even reflect as the most successful film any of the three actors have done, but Piku did get it right. So does success lie in simple story telling sans the song and dance sequences and multiple foreign locations? I’d disagree. Because that’s the beauty about Bollywood – it caters to everything and everyone. It has the same Sanjay Dutt who can fight against hundred thugs single handedly, and it is the same Sanjay Dutt who can make us teary eyes in Munnabhai . It’s this diversity in cinema that allows hundreds of films to be produced every year and most movies find their own audience across the world.

Additionally, the diva Deepika is stripped down to a complete de-glamourized Bengali beauty. The male protagonist in the film isn’t flaunting washboard abs but a genuine talent. Irrfan Khan slips into any character like a glove and yet again shows us that ‘off beat’ actors can be main stream without any additional frills. Big B’s versatility is a lesson for anyone aspiring to be an actor.

So without just one protagonist (reference to the soon to be released Dil Dhadakne Do), ensemble casts do demonstrate the shift towards quality cinema as against (maybe) egotistic actors. With an equal screen place between the legend (Amitabh Bachchan), the diva (Deepika Padukone) and the critically acclaimed star (Irrfan Khan), we do know that actors now select films based on how well they can play a character, how much they can challenge their own ability and how far they can connect to the script.