Domestic Unrest:
The first season of Permanent Roommates, created by Arunabh Kumar, founder of The Viral Fever (TVF), was the first show released online, on YouTube, in 2013, before the OTT boom triggered by the pandemic.
Written by Biswadeep Sarkar and Sameer Saxena, the show hooked a generation of young viewers, who could identify with the lifestyle of the two leads, Mukesh (Sumeet Vyas) and Tanya (Nidhi Singh).
Getting into realistic mode after years of loud TV melodrama, it captured an urban ethos that is very different from the kitchen sink serials satellite television had unleashed.
The third season comes seven years after the second, when Mikesh and Tanya have settled into a live-in relationship after years of a long-distance romance. They have satisfying, well-paid careers, but without realising it, predictability has set into their lives. When Mikesh plans surprises for her birthday, Tanya knows exactly what they will be, because he does the same things every year.
Tanya’s father, Brijmohan (Shishir Sharma), not very helpfully, tells Mikesh that she is bored and his friend, Purushottam (Deepak Kumar Mishra) pours fuel over his discontent.
Mikesh’s mother, Lata (Sheeba Chadda) arrives suddenly and far from being the conservative clingy mother-in-law stereotype, she is warm and supportive of Tanya’s point of view. She also befriends the neighbourhood prankster (Sachin Pilgaonkar), and slowly comes out of her shell.
When a colleague announces her transfer to Germany, Tanya gets it into her head that she wants to emigrate too. Mikesh reluctantly agrees, because Brijmohan told him a real man never says no.
Their misadventures in trying to get the paperwork done for migration to Canada puts a strain on their relationship.
Directed by Shreyansh Pandey, Permanent Roommates Season 3 is, like the earlier two, simple, but full of understated drama and humour. And it knows how to wrap up nicely in five episodes.
The appeal of the show lies in the performances, and in the fact that it is rooted in today’s urban reality. Mikesh and Tanya could be the DINK couple next door. Every society has a seniors’ gang. Though not everyone has such cool parents. Or such all-weather friends.
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in)
