Babil Khan Calls Baba Irrfan’s Piku ‘Masterpiece’, Says ‘Shoojit Sircar Is Father Figure To Me’ | Exclusive
Babil reveals his favourite scene and dialogue from Piku. He also spills the beans on his equation with Shoojit Sircar and thanks him for taking him back to his roots.
A decade ago, Piku hit the screens on May 8. The Shoojit Sircar directorial starring Amitabh Bachchan, Irrfan and Deepika Padukone won immense critical acclaim for its layered storytelling infused with humour and sensitive portrayal of mortality through a father-daughter relationship. The film, which achieved a cult status over the years, also went on to bag three National Film Awards. While Big B was honoured as the Best Actor, writer Juhi Chaturvedi won the Best Original Screenplay and Best Dialogue awards.
With Piku completing ten years of its release, Irrfan’s son Babil exclusively shared his thoughts on the film with us. This is interestingly also coming at a time when the film has been re-released in theatres. “I think Piku is a masterpiece. In the film, there’s a dialogue that baba says to Deepika’s character. He asks her, who’re you without your roots and if you lose your roots, then who’re you? As I go along with my life, that line becomes truer for me. That’s why I say that Shoojit da takes me back to my roots," he said.
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Not many know that Babil served as an intern for the camera department during the shoot of Piku and Shoojit’s storytelling left a lasting impact on him. Talking about his equation with the filmmaker, he told us, “Shoojit da is a father figure to me. He has been a very, very important part of my sanity and in a very practical way. He comes to visit me and tells me, ‘Clean your room first and then we’ll talk.’ So, I clean my room quickly because I really want to talk to him. After that, he tells me that since I’ve enough space to play football, I should start dribbling the ball."
But Irrfan perhaps didn’t know at that time that Babil would become an actor. “I remember that at a roundtable, the interviewer asked baba as to what I’m planning on doing eventually, as I was learning filmmaking at that time. With an expression of resignation, Baba was like, ‘He’s not doing anything!’" Babil laughed.
Last year, while speaking to us, Shoojit shed light on his experience of working on Piku which dealt with the motif of death and grief and called the experience ‘cathartic’. “Death is the ultimate truth. You can’t shy away, close your eyes or keep yourself away from that truth. You don’t want to think about it, that’s fine. You want to be in denial, that’s fine. But if you can have fun with it, that, I think, is beautiful," he remarked.
Piku, however, remains the only film where Shoojit directed his late friend, Irrfan. Reminiscing about him and his ‘infectious smile’, he said, “He would randomly come to my office, give me the tightest and most beautiful hug and go, ‘Dada, chai pilaao. Chai piyenge aur baat karenge.’ I connected quite deeply with him. Sometimes, you become friends with someone because there’s a purpose there. But with Irrfan, there was no purpose or any condition. We used to just meet and speak. We used to frequently call each other up and chat."
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