All About Pammi

Dressed up as Shah Rukh Khan with a superstar logo and a picture of Irrfan on his leather jacket,Gaurav Gera climbs the mandir stairs with filmi determination,rings the bells and mouths off dialogues like Amitabh Bachchan. He’s a wannabe actor from Gorakhpur desperate for divine intervention. The first episode of Colors’ Mrs Pammi Pyarelal was nothing short of a Bollywood drama straight from the Eastman spoofs of the Seventies. The makers set the pace and make it more spoofy. Enter Pandeyji,a Mumbai casting agent,who tells Gera to pack his bags and land in tinseltown. Gera arrives ,only to play a dead body. Together with best friend Rahul Pyarelal (Karan Goddwani),they go house-hunting at Faujdaar Villa,where Rahul unwittingly agrees to the “ab tak chhapan” retired encounter specialist Kamini Faujdaar’s (Usha Nadkarni) rule that only married couple can reside. Param Gulati (Gera) gives in and next thing we know,he turns into Pammi.

Gera makes a fine woman. The way he blinks his eyes,brushes his hair and holds his sari makes you want to see more of her. Clearly she is the highlight of the show. But that’s about it. Once the show introduces other members of the house,Pammi falls into the trappings of a cliched Hindi sitcom,one that plays heavily on caricature characters,funny background score,and run-of-the-mill situations.

As a show,Pammi is part goofy and part eccentric,and maybe that is how it was intended to be. While it sets the pace in the first couple of episodes,it will need a lot to keep it steady on a daily basis. We wish the makers could’ve revealed more on how Param transforms into Pammi,how she puts together a wardrobe in a jiffy and comes dressed to kill.