The Piggybank Effect:
The popular family series by TVF, Gullak has reached a fifth season, resolutely standing up against the many crime shows (some would be A rated if OTT had a certification system), that drop regularly on streaming channels. The appeal of the show (that started in 2019) lies in its sheer innocence, that has characters concerned about mundane matters, while the world around is going crazy.
Gullak Season 5, also created by Shreyansh Pandey, has seven episodes instead of the usual five. The Mishra family comprising father Santosh (Jameel Khan), mother Shanti (Geetanjali Kulkarni), sons Anand (Anantvijay Joshi takes over from Vaibhav Raj Gupta) and Aman (Harsh Mayar), still live in the ordinary house in a north Indian town, and their crises are still minor. The garrulous neighbour, Bittu Ki Mummy (Sunita Rajwar), who walks in and out of their house without a by your leave, is often the scene stealer. The narrator of their stories in a clay gullak (piggy bank) voiced in a wry tone by Shivankit Singh Parihar.
What changes in this season is that the walls of Mishra Niwas get a new coat of paint, which, for the Mishra family, does not have the desired effect; and wifi is installed, a bit late in the day. To add to the family’s irritation quota, Shanti’s brother, Pramod Pathak aka Pinky (Gopal Datt) arrives (he even wears a TV shirt that reads Kaleshi Aadmi—troublesome man) in a shiny SUV, which dwarfs Santosh Mishra’s humble scooter and dents his ego. Pinky is as much a busybody as Bittu Ki Mummy, whose real name is revealed to be Shalini. This happens when she decides to become a social media crusader and starts a Mahila Mandal called Sakhi Shalini, and storms around with her phone camera, a gaggle of followers and a young woman recording her exploits.
She insists, and rightly so, that women should reclaim their individual identities, by addressing each other by their given names. It is a bit unfair of writer Vidit Tripathi and directors Abhay Raut and Shreyansh Pandey to make fun of a woman who wants to assert herself—even if she goes about it in a helter-skelter manner.
Shanti, who spends her days cooking, cleaning and doing endless loads of laundry, now has to host Shalini’s meetings and be ordered around like a domestic helper. Later, she is not pleased to overhear Shalini saying that Shanti is incapable of saying no.
Pinky Mama may have his own agenda for the visit, but he does come bearing a huge chunk of paneer, that Bittu Ki Mummy is convinced must be fake, and conducts endless tests. Meanwhile, the sons are having their own problems, apart from trying to grow small wings that would help the fly from the nest. Eventually they will have to understand that they won’t always get clean underwear and favourite dishes courtesy Mom — adulting is the new term for it. Anand has to deal with office politics, and the chasm between hasrat (desire) and haisiyat (status) when it comes to the pretty dentist (Helly Shah), introduced in earlier seasons. Aman tries to run a seemingly harmless scam that backfires on the family.
The Mishras’ communication consists of punchlines and smart comebacks, but it is the gullak that gets some pithy lines. Even though there’s only this much a middle-class family’s woes can be wrung for humour, the series still manages, though it seems to be getting tougher. Still, Gullak 5 is likeable, mainly because of the actors, whose chemistry works for them to be convincing as a loving family; this is rare, because unlike others on screen it does not have to be dysfunctional to be watchable. By now, Gullak’s familiarity is its selling point—it is like that favourite T-shirt that is faded and stretched out of shape by multiple washes, but is still too comfortable to discard. By the end of seven episodes, audiences will have discovered a new Hindi word—kinkartvyavimood. How many web series could boast of sending viewers diving for the shabdkosh (dictionary)?
(This piece first appeared in rediff.com)
