Write It On The Screen

Actor Ayushmann Khurana recalls being pleasantly surprised by the script of Vicky Donor. Not only was it on a taboo subject—sperm donation—but was underlined with quirky wit rather than the crass gags the theme could have provoked. What struck Ayushmann were the wonderful women propping up his character: Dolly, his widowed mother, single-handedly running the household; his grandmother Beeji, who shares an evening drink with his mom and suggests that she get remarried; and, of course, Vicky’s banker love Ashima, who’s much better qualified than him and financially sound. All of them women of strength and depth, and with a sense of humour and zest for life. Not surprisingly, the scriptwriter was a woman, one who goes at the keyboard with a sense of fun: Juhi Chaturvedi.

“A film that would have made India cringe had the country laughing out loud instead,” says Ayushmann, who credits Juhi entirely for turning a cringe-inducer into a clutter-buster.  Sperms—greedy sperm, angry sperm, miserly sperm—became the stuff of family conversation and even the elderly were joking about them. And as if to show that Vicky Donor was no flash in the pan, Juhi has repeated the success this year with Piku, which again treads with style and panache a path unusual for Bollywood. The brand of scatological humour she used even got the squeamish types smiling.