Travails Of Parenting:
Many a harried urban parent would consider the lives of the three friends in Raat Jawaan Hai a fairy tale. They are supposedly crushed under the burden of parenthood, but their days still seem like picnics. Having said that, the eight-part series on Sony LIV is funny and fuzzy and would make everybody wish they had friends like these.
Radhika (Anjali Anand), Suman (Priya Bapat) and Avinash (Barun Sobti) grew up together. In the present, they are married to surprisingly mature spouses who don’t resent their closeness. They are also stay at home parents to infants, whose days are absorbed in caring for the surprisingly non-cranky kids. They live in large – by Mumbai standards—apartments, and get by rather well on a single income. Their problems as envisaged by writer Khyati Anand Puthran and director Sumeet Vyas, are how to be themselves when they have been reduced to being nothing but parents. That’s called ‘adulting’, but nobody told them that.
They are well off enough to afford nannies (in their circles 20 lakh kiddie parties are normal) but it becomes a big deal when they can’t plan a movie together, or just go partying like they used to in college. There is an unbelievable episode in which they go to a village to fetch a nanny, and as they are lost and tired, discover how the other half lives.
It is a big crisis when their libidos decline, because the kid wakes up just when they are getting started. Since they are constantly confiding in each other, Suman’s husband Sattu (Vikram Singh Chauhan) complains that she never speaks to him. Then there are inevitable in-law problems. Avinash’s parents do not approve of his stay-at-home-dad status, and by extension dislike his wife (Hasleen Kaur). Suman’s routine goes haywire when her in-laws arrive for a visit.
Radhika is all weepie when her daughter starts school, and is appalled when the kid starts to like the teacher, and wants to go to school instead of clinging to her mother. She also asks why her mother does not dress like her teacher or wear lipstick. Still, Radhika is unable to go back to work, and become a corporate drudge. Then, life throws a curveball and Radhika finds that she is pregnant. Her mild-mannered husband (Priyansh Jora) cannot understand the emotional upheaval she goes through.
The plots may seem flimsy, but the show is well written, with spontaneously witty dialogue that does not sound like it came out of a script. The three characters fit their parts perfectly and have a kind of easy chemistry, so their banter sounds completely natural–kudos to the director too. For the class of people who are economically comfortable enough to have choices, Raat Jawaan Hai, is relatable. It is also entertaining and binge-worthy when the mood strikes for some light viewing.
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in)
