‘Khichdi’

Hansa:

 Praful confuse matlab?
Praful: Confuse Hansaaaa
Jab humaare ghar pe light chali jaati hai to kudkud-Kumar Babuji kya kehte hain?
Hansa: Ae Babuji toh kehte hain ki..."Lo fuse udd gaya, ab fuse theek kaun karega? Kaun fuse theek karega?
Kaun Fuse
Acchha Confuse...Achhaa Acchha Confuse

Talking of Indian sitcoms, the first one that floods my mind is none other than -‘Khichdi’. Almost about a decade back, the TV series ‘Khichdi’ used PJs as an effective tool of humour on the small screen. The core characters were so unrealistically naive that they took literal meaning of the spoken word over logical thereby inducing laughter. Unlike illogical comedies that question our reasoning, the effort was to intentionally defy logic and tickle our funny bone with the exaggerated silliness of this ‘mad-mad world’. It was so liked by the viewers that, all 98 episodes of this sitcom have been rerun on a number of channels.

It became so popular that it went on to be made into a movie –Khichdi-The Movie, which aired in 2002 – and was made for its most memorable one-liners. It is the first film in the history of Hindi cinema to be based on a television series.

About the series: The Parekh family is an odd assortment of dumb and dumber people. Now, that's quite a pain for Babuji (Anang Desai), the patriarch of the family who happens to be in a minority amidst the mentally challenged members like son, Prafulla (Rajeev Mehta), daughter-in-law, Hansa (Supriya Pathak) and her brother, Himanshu (Jamnadas Majethia).

 

Khichdi - The Movie aptly took the idiot box legacy to the big screen. The essence of the characters and the comedy remained the same while the televised anecdotes were upgraded to a cinematic account. It tried to recreate the idiot box humour of the family of idiots, where stupidity is the norm and intelligence, an exception.

In the movie, the family is on a mission. They want to find a match for Himanshu. Perhaps, that’s indeed asking for too much. Until they find an as much asinine counterpart in their Punjabi neighbour Parminder (Kirti Kulhari). Everything goes fine until Himanshu feels that things have fallen into place effortlessly and there is no challenge in his love story like legendary romances. Therein starts the family's journey to give Himanshu everything that he is missing in his love story - separation, sadness, pain.

At the outset, the writing by Aatish Kapadia might not seem as demanding since he employs a standard format of taking the literal meaning of every line to make us laugh. But what is challenging is his ability to pull off the continual use of PJs through the film. Of course at times the jokes are silly, stupid, sad or stretched beyond their expiry date. But then, there are some laugh-out-loud moments too that make up for the slackness, making it an easily digestible comedy