Piku, our loveable, modern day Jo March

There are two tropes for women in popular literature.

She can be an Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, who resists the idea of a perfect marriage, but inevitably finds the ideal man, with money and heart.

Or she can be Jo March from Little Women, the restless son-that-never-was, who wants a life outside home and yet learns to balance domestic responsibilities. She learns to love a good man, who may not seem the ideal choice at first look. She is the gull, "strong and wild, fond of the storm and the wind, flying far out to sea, and happy all alone".

Since we've had a few Elizabeth Bennets (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in Bride and Prejudice), it's time to celebrate our Jo Marchs. Young women who balance work and family, their ageing parents and their sex lives, the world and the home. Which is where Deepika Padukone's Piku fits right in. We see her berating the cook for leaving the dahi out of the fridge thanks to which it has now become khatta. We see her struggling with the plunger in the kitchen sink and telling off the cook again because he pours tea leaves down the sink. We see her cleaning cobwebs in the house on her day off. And we see her again getting frustrated because her father accuses the maid of being a phenyl chor - we see she just wants someone to do the cleaning and washing, as many working women do, turning a blind eye to the petty thievery.

Only a woman scriptwriter could come up with such minutiae of everyday life. Juhi Chaturvedi, the scriptwriter, notices the little things that make a single, young woman's life - the autos and taxis that need to be taken to get to work; the friend who needs to be called to drive home from a late night dinner; the date that needs to be sacrificed because the ageing father has sent an SOS; the possibility that every single young man, especially one with a green card, will be seen as potential husband material; and the permanent exhaustion. Piku is strong willed, just like Jo. And she is creative, just like Jo.

What she does with her intelligence is the question. Will she, as her querulous but enlightened father, Bhaskor Banerjee, says take a low IQ decision like her mother? Give up her own academic credentials and dedicate her life to making her husband happy? Bhaskor hopes not, because as he puts it rather bluntly to a potential suitor, Piku is financially and sexually independent. She doesn't need a man to make her happy.

That's the age old dilemma for young women, especially in a society such as India, where parental care is still regarded largely as a child's responsiblity - as Bhaskor says, we took care of you when you were a child, now you take care of me, I am your child. So simple isn't it? In the 19th century, Louisa May Alcott's Jo March had to give up her writing to take care of her much older husband, Professor Bhaer. In the 21st century, Bhaskor hopes Piku won't have to do the same. She should have a shaadi with a purpose, he says. A marriage of companionship, not convenience. Because shaadi without a purpose is a low IQ decision.