Pratibha Lalotra
During one of her weekly Sunday calls she says, “Congratulations……it’s a baby boy….thank God!”I dumbfound banged the phone as I was completely jolted away to see her excitement on birth of a baby boy. Had there been a chance in God’s house where he asks every being what he wants to be, a girl or a boy. The notion of volunteering for being a girl would have been such a glory idea that it would have given chills down the spine to the contender. What actually provoked me writing this article is movie Piku. The kind of relation being potrayed between a father and a daughter in the movie is something that beats words and worlds. Maa….In its diminutive form is perhaps the first and sometimes the last word we utter in our life. We hear a lot a lot about importance of mothers in our lives. It is indeed important but what’s often missing from the conversation is the importance of a father in a child’s life and more precisely in a daughter’s life. In our society, father daughter relationship have been treated like the light inside the refrigerator, “there, yet rarely on our minds, except the times when we open the door or when the bulb burns out!” The relation is generally less communicative, less relaxed, less flashy than what a girl shares with her mother but that just doesn’t means that the love is any less and yes….what a daughter feels for her father is something celestial and they do twice as much as sons do to care for their parents. Daughters do the lion’s share to care for parents, accepting the financial and emotional responsibilities that go along with it and wonder why still some people mourn for “sons”.
Piku doesn’t feels like a movie, rather a video recording of any family with an ageing parent and a single child talking care of him/her. The movie explores the relationship between an old father and his daughter on whom he completely depends. An emotionally rich and endearing movie, Piku is a heart warming movie that reminds every daughter of the days spent with her father. Fathers, indeed the most important gift we have being bestowed with. Although, blurred but I still remember my early childhood days when my mother would be busy preparing breakfast for us and my father would polish our shoes, knot our ties, tie up our belts and what not. Here I will emphasise on our nation’s first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi’s excerpt from one of her speeches, “When we are born, we don’t choose our parents and when we go to school we don’t choose the school, we just get the school what parents choose for us. And there it made a difference.” My father decided to give me the best education from one of the best schools of the town breaking the usual monotony, as I hail from a very small area. Knowingly unknowingly, sometimes secretly, he buried down all his wishes to meet our luxuries and never deprived us of anything as every parent does. He inculcated in me sense of moral values……values of honesty, self respect, character, humbleness and never ever made me feel less than my brother and I know he was the happiest person when I was born. Infact a father is the happiest person when a daughter is born. What a father says to his daughters aren’t different words but they are words with radically different meaning and strength….Yes…Strength may be not in your fingernails but in your heart.
Piku is a take on a daughter who is independent, looking after her hypochondriac and aging parent and indeed that was the best part and after watching that movie every parent would wish to have a daughter like that who selflessly devotes her time, her love to her father. Her act as a selfless daughter, who spends more time listening to her father’s constipation tales than on her professional or marital pursuits in Piku, has garnered an overwhelming responses. All your life our parents take care of us. They are there for us when we need them, always covering our back with love, support and sometimes financial help. Now Its your time to pay back…when your parents need you the most. The dilemma of taking care of elderly parents has now a days have become most agonising life crisis. What to do when parents who once took care of you no longer take care of themselves?! In most of the cases, mere casual mention of aging parents is likely to open up a Pandora’s Box of anxieties. There are stories told with tears, with exasperation and sometimes, when they can take a step back, with laughter. Even if they are still doing fine, middle aged children need only look around at friends and neighbours that these anxieties will become theirs one day.
In India, youth are abandoning their elderly parents at a very high rate. Going by the statistics one in every three senior citizens in India is a victim of abuse. Reading one of the instances by some 75 years Kusum Lata left me in a deep shock when she shared her bitter experience with some local newspaper. She was on the highway with his son when his son offered the proposal of going for a car ride. He stopped the car midway near a fruit stall and asks her mother to step out for buying some fruits. As she steps out, he starts his car and before she could call, he sped off. Some of the abuses were found to be as brutal as severe beating of elderly parents by their own kids says 2012 report.
The only difference now is that, because we live so long, our children suffer it right alongside us. But Mind you…parents deserve care it’s their right, not a favour..! The movie beautifully captures the ups and downs of a father-daughter relationship and highlights that patience, and love is key when it comes to caring for the elderly. Piku is a film, which also portrays the strength of a young woman, handling a full-time job, responsibilities at home and being the sole rock supporting and shouldering the task of looking after her father. Last but not the least, let me leave you all with these beautiful lines and this is actually a tribute to every father in this world and especially for you papa from from your loving daughter………
“Like an angel, you held my hand, protecting me in the crowed fair……..
Waiting long in the queues, you bought me candies and balloons……
You saved me from Mamma’s wrath when I would do something mischievous……
You showed me the life, you wished me to live………..
You got angry when I decided not to frame the life you once fabricated for me….Later, you supported me to knit my own world, my own dreams…..
I moved, you stayed…….You stayed on ever as you had done to be the best father. I progressed….forgot your birthday at times but never did you………
Life moves, changes……But I wish these three words remain most important to me, “My daughter…..the prettiest”…Words so beautiful, so bright that no concealer can cover them……
This is just to say you Papa no matter where I go in my life, whom I marry…..You will always be my hero………
And at last but not the least…..Thank you papa for being a father, MY FATHER……….!”
