Amitabh Bachchan's character in 'Piku' inspired by Utpal Dutt: Shoojit Sircar

Amitabh Bachchan’s Bhaskor Banerjee in ‘Piku’ had traces of Utpal Dutt’s screen persona, said Shoojit Sircar who feels surprised that his attempt to capture the mundane everyday family life with humour continues to resonate with people.

‘Piku’ features Bachchan as a 70-year-old widowed father and Padukone as his headstrong daughter. They embark on a road trip from Delhi to Kolkata. Irrfan Khan played Rana Chaudhary, a taxi business owner, who reluctantly agrees to drive the father-daughter duo.

“A lot of people have told me that ‘Piku’ has Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee type touch. There was no such influence while we were writing the film. We thought we were writing something original. The only inspiration that we possibly, after the film was written, took was that Bachchan’s character was always like Utpal Dutt. We wanted Bhaskor Banerjee (Bachchan) not as Utpal Dutt-ish character, but he has those character sketches of Utpal Dutt, who is always talking and has his own mind. So, that was purely for Bhaskor Banerjee,” Sircar told PTI.

Interestingly, Utpal Dutt was a regular in many of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee’s movies, which are also famous for capturing everyday family life in their movies.

Looking back at one of the most loved movies ahead of its 10th-anniversary re-release in theatres, Sircar said he managed to make a simple movie with such acting stalwarts.

“If I go back and think about it now, I’m surprised. How did I manage it with these three stalwarts, getting this kind of very mundane everyday family life with that humorous touch? This film set up a trend in terms of how a simple family film can be told, without too much drama and there were too many things happening around it. The simplicity of it, I think, is still the reason for its shelf life,” he added.

Despite all the accolades, including three National awards, Best Actor for Bachchan, Best Original Screenplay and dialogues for writer Juhi Chaturvedi, Sircar does not consider "Piku" to be a perfect film. “If I go back and make this film, there will be a lot more, many things which I would like to correct a little bit. I might slow it down a little.”