Curmudgeon – a bad tempered or surly person

Bhashkor Bhattacharya, Piku's chronically constipated, septuagenarianfather, is my favourite curmudgeon, and thanks to him Hindi cinema has come of, a certain, age. In a country so youth obsessed it is refreshingly left of center for character's like Bhashkor and his rag tag family to appeal to so many, but they have. So what does that say about us? Are we finally ready to relinquish the hegemony of youth over our cultural landscape? I am cautiously optimistic.

Perhaps Bhaskor's appeal lies in the fact that he is so relatable (to the elderly) he mirrors their deepest fears and insecurities- that of being increasingly irrelevant or worse forgotten; to circumvent which hedigs in deep and spends most of his time being as impossible as possible, hence making himself difficult to ignore. And to the youth because he is spirited, irreverent and all to familiar. Age brings with it license, you get to say what you like, and no one holds it against you. That kind of immunity is earned, its taken years of biting ones tongue, keeping ones peace, side stepping a potential situation, to come to it. If you want a brutally honest opinion about an outfit or your date for example ask your grandparents, chances are not only will they be frank they'll be right as well. Why? Because they have nothing to lose – and all those years of experience do count for something.

Ageing isn't fun, but its liberating, perhaps it's the whole inching closer to the finish line that does it, nothing else seems quite as daunting in comparison.

But back to Bhashkor, one journey with him was hardly enough to completely appreciate his eccentricities, for all his haranguing of Piku he was, is the most liberal minded male protagonist Hindi cinema audiences have had the pleasure of watching. With him, at least my journey with Hindi movies has come full circle- it is a perfectly natural transition from angry young man to a grouchy, dyspeptic old man.