Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai - Comedy begins at home! :)

Yesterday after a long time I sat and watched the TV series “Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai” which was aired in 2005 in one of the newly introduced channels. It was something of a welcome change in the era of tedious saas bahu sitcoms which have shamelessly analogous and dreary story lines with vexing bahu’s and even more irksome saas. The stories are a never ending saga which you realise is never any different from what it was 2 months or for that matter 2 years back only with may be a teeny tiny adaptations like saas is sitting on sofa in her bedroom instead of sitting in front of dining table cutting vegetables thanamarofying the bahu or plotting something with the main vamp and bahu has changed her sari from red to green or may be is now crying in the balcony instead of the kitchen!!

But trashing of the saas bahu sitcoms apart the reason I remembered of this particular TV series was because I heard that the channel in which it was aired was scraped off for good. After this I downloaded the complete series of 64 episodes just to re-live the magic created by the Sarabhai parivaar. Set in a prototypical Malabar hill flat, it opens with Sumeet Ragahvan as Sahil the protagonist, a cosmetic surgeon with a kind heart who is caught between his wife and his mother, vacillating in a place like Goa where he grudgingly tells the story of his family to a flop novelist.

The story revolves around the family of Sarabhai’s, the eldest son Sahil Sarabhai the agony aunt of the house always trying to sort out the never ending differences between his mother and his wife but always in a fix as he can’t say no to either of them. Sahil’s wife Monisha Sarabhai (Rupali Ganguly), who is from a loutish and vernacularly middle class family coming from a small town in Punjab,  obsessed with discount sales, never really particular about hygiene until and unless it is life threatening, fixated with over rated saas bahu sitcoms is the emblematic middle class Punjab di kudi. Sahil’s mother Maya Sarabhai (Rathna Pathak shah) comes from a high society background with sophistication imbibed into her from her childhood who attends cocktail parties from the big wigs, is the member of woman welfare societies, runs for cultural society president always finds her daughter-in-law obnoxiously middle class and doesn’t miss a chance of pointing that out. Some of Monisha murdabad speeches given by Maya are similar to- Monisha hamesha “ball pen ki dhakhan chabathi hai, chappal ghasitke chalthi hai, sofe pe kapda pade rahain ne dethi hai, traffic may agarbathi kharid ke khush ho jathi hai”. To make matters worse Indravdhan Sarabhai (Satish Shah) Sahil’s father popularly addressed as naradh muni by his son keeps stoking the coals of fire between Maya and Monisha making Sahil’s dilemma even shoddier. In between all this chaos Rosesh Sarabhai (Rajesh Kumar) Sahil’s younger brother a struggling actor with an obsession of writing BAD poetry keeps making matters even more worse by siding his MOMA and is a MAMA’s boy through and through.

Sarabhai vs Sarabhai is a classic comedy which brings a dose of family Tu Tu Mai Mai with every new episode which leaves you rolling on the floor laughing. Every episode has something new to offer but does not lose its old charm. The pandemonium created by urbane Maya, Just so middle class Monisha, Mama’s chamcha Rosesh, girgit sarabhai Indravadhan weave a spell of humour with a sprinkle of Madhu phupha (hain hain Kumar), Dushyanth, Sonia, Vittalkaka and Radhabhai to keep you coming back for more. After a long gap Indian Television Industry had come up with something worth watching. And as far as I am concerned this is included in the list of must watch TV series along with Malgudi Days, Office Office, Mungerilal ki haseen sapne, flop show and few others which are ever green and several of the best Indian Television Industry has come up with so far.