{"id":1008,"date":"2016-03-23T23:11:45","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T23:11:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=1008"},"modified":"2016-03-23T23:11:45","modified_gmt":"2016-03-23T23:11:45","slug":"sarabhai-vs-sarabhai-take-two-review-hotstar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=1008","title":{"rendered":"Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai Take 2: Don’t Raise a Toast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span>n 2004, Indian TV was an IV drip of saas-bahu dramas, uninvited reincarnations of Tulsi Virani\u2019s dead husband, and a collective wait for Jassi\u2019s highly anticipated makeover. In this OTT environment, a show about a dysfunctional upper-class Gujarati family quietly defied this expected trajectory.\n\nIn breaking away from the over-dramatic portrayal of a fictional family, JD Majethia and Aatish Kapadia ensured that <\/p>Sarabhai vs Sarabhai<\/em>\u2019s two-year run on Star One remained devoid of a formulaic narration, vamps that came loaded with personalised song tracks, and sanskaar on crack that looked for signs in a diya\u2019s flame. Sarabhai<\/em> was a novel show rooted in a solid reality check, closer to Indian TV\u2019s earliest sitcoms like the gentle Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi<\/em> and Idhar Udhar<\/em>.\n\nSarabhai vs Sarabhai<\/em> revolved around the mild discord in the Sarabhai family. Maya Sarabhai, the matriarch, essayed the role of a refined, upper-class SoBo woman, who is unable to come to terms with her clumsy daughter-in-law Monisha\u2019s often uncouth, \u201cmiddle-class\u201d ways. The central conceit of the show was Maya\u2019s barely veiled disdain toward Monisha\u2019s obsession with utilising commodities to the fullest, such as using edibles even after their expiry date and repurposing her husband\u2019s vest as a carry-bag. The show derived much of its comedy from the barbs Maya threw at Monisha, and her inability to live up to her posh mother-in-law\u2019s excessively high expectations.\n\nMaya\u2019s contempt for her daughter-in-law\u2019s middle-class habits was matched by her ferocious affection toward her younger son Roshesh, an aspiring poet-actor with a penchant for taking up bizarre roles, like that of a milk-can. Roshesh is also determined to ruin the art of poetry, much to the amusement of his father, Indravardhan Sarabhai, who has a knack for playing practical jokes on his family. His elder son and Monisha\u2019s husband, Sahil, is possibly the only sane person in the family, forever balancing his erring wife and mother.\n\nThe show\u2019s tight writing, aided perfectly by the eccentricities of its lead characters, recognisable through their quirks, became the reason Sarabhai vs Sarabhai\u2019s<\/em> brand of slapstick comedy ended up reinventing the Indian sitcom. Initially branded as a show much ahead of its time (which means it was discontinued due to dismal ratings), Sarabhai vs Sarabhai<\/em> amassed a cult following only after its reruns found a place on the channel\u2019s daily roster \u2013 a fate similar to Sholay<\/em>\u2019s.\n

Apart from being the beacon of sensible content on the idiot box, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai was also the original Modern Family, minus its diversity and political correctness.<\/blockquote>\nNaturally, a Facebook video announcement of the show\u2019s comeback as Sarabhai vs Sarabhai: Take 2<\/em>, a 10-episode long web-series was met with unprecedented adulation by its loyal fans. Apart from being the beacon of sensible content on the idiot box, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai<\/em> was also the original Modern Family<\/em>, minus its diversity and political correctness. The Sarabhais were a reminder of simpler times, when shows could get away without being weighed down by comparisons with their Western counterparts.\n\nBut, not anymore.\n\nEleven years later, we have once again been offered a peek inside the world of the Sarabhais and it\u2019s not good news. Watching the first episode of the new season last week, I realised that for all its brilliance at building characters, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai<\/em> was destined to fail in trying to catch the pulse of today\u2019s audience. The return is devoid of any punchlines synonymous with the show; instead, it seeks refuge in crass jokes\u00a0(including an astrologer who can predict the future with one look at a person’s underwear) and milking the eccentricities of its characters.\u00a0For instance, Monisha’s insistence that her mother-in-law perfect a thumka in front of a Baba’s samadhi that seems completely unnecessary.\n\nMonisha and Sahil’s son Arnab, who is a new inclusion in the season to justify the show’s seven-year-leap, sticks out like a sore thumb trying to be the middle-ground between the two women. By the second episode, the plot-point of the family being stuck on a bus that’s about to fall-off a cliff becomes stretched beyond redemption, leaving you disinterested. If that wasn’t enough, tragedy befalls the family a second time when they’re about to cross a hanging bridge. Indravardhan and Roshesh cause chaos when they get stuck in a bus window and on a bridge respectively, but are miraculously rescued a minute later. We might have bought it the first time around, but\u00a011 years later<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>, the audience is far less gullible, and by not taking that into account, the show falters hard.\n\nIn this second run, the sets are bigger the Sarabhai pad is flashier and the actors are more aware of their stardom, just the way the show is aware of its standing in the hearts of the audience. The problem is that the awareness shows. What once felt like an effortless depiction of life in a class-divided India now seems like a study in self-consciousness, a show still trading only on it’s main currency: nostalgia.\n\nBut nostalgia is an impossible thing to recreate. It is an essence, barely defined. Which is why an attempt to capture a period, a specific cultural zeitgeist, and to recreate that consciously can be a dangerous thing.\n\nSarabhai vs Sarabhai<\/em>\u2019s insistence on charting a return is ultimately what will be its undoing. It\u2019s a fate that met that other wildly successful show\u00a0Khichdi<\/em>, which drowned under the weight of its own ambitions when it was adapted into a film. It\u2019s a fate that would be destined for Pandit Gangadhar Vidyadhar Mayadhar Omkaar Naath Shastri if\u00a0Shaktimaan<\/em>\u00a0were to come alive in 2017.\u00a0\u00a0Nostalgia is a tricky genie to control \u2013 some genies are best left bottled.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai\u2019s return as a web-series isn\u2019t the most prudent move on the part of its makers. The only thing going for it is nostalgia \u2013 and that\u2019s a tricky genie to control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":1009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[1795,19,1796,544,1797,1798,1799,1800,1801,1802,545,1803,1804,1805],"class_list":["post-1008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-hotstar","tag-india","tag-indravadan-sarabhai","tag-maya-sarabhai","tag-monisha-sarabhai","tag-rajesh-kumar","tag-ratna-pathak-shah","tag-rosesh-sarabhai","tag-rupali-ganguly","tag-sahil-sarabhai","tag-sarabhai-vs-sarabhai","tag-satish-shah","tag-sumeet-raghavan","tag-take-2"],"yoast_head":"\nSarabhai Vs Sarabhai Take 2: Don't Raise a Toast<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai\u2019s return as a web-series isn\u2019t the most prudent move on the part of its makers. 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