What would one want after coming home from a busy day’s work, during boredom or after a stressful time?? The obvious answer - Relaxation. And normally, what would one do for relaxation. Another obvious answer would be - Switch on the television, apart from participating in activities of one’s interest.
Today, although television has expanded its frontiers greater than ever before, it can also be monotonous or add to your boredom. Family dramas(soaps) and reality shows are the main types of shows dominating this industry today. No doubt, reality TV has add its edge with humour. How can one forget The Great Indian Laughter Challenge and Comedy Circus among others, each of which had multiple successful seasons.
When it comes to sitcoms, we have had few popular ones dominating the TV screens such as Sarabhai vs Sarabhai and FIR. Another equally popular is the unnoticeable Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chasma focused on a society, each having unique characters. The show began in July 2008 and since then, it has been airing 5 times a week from Mon - Fri at 8:30 pm on Sony SAB TV. It is based on the write up Duniya Ne Undha Chashma by Indian columnist and writer Taarak Mehta.
Plot :-
The story is about a society named ’Gokuldham’ in Mumbai, which is known as ’Mini India’ for its members or outsiders visiting it. There are 6 main families in this society, each having a different regional and religious background. However, the main focus of the plot is on Jethalal Gada(Dilip Joshi) and his family i.e Daya(Disha Vakani), his wife, Champaklal(Amit Bhatt), his father and son Tapu(Bhavya Gandhi). Apart from them, the other families are:-
1) Taarak Mehta(Shailesh Lodha) and Anjali Mehta(Neha Mehta)
2) Atmaram Bhide(Mandar Chandvadkar), Madhavi(Sonalika Joshi) and daughter Sonu(Jheel Mehta)
3) Krishnan Iyer(Tanuj Mahashabde) and Babita(Moonmoon Dutta)
4) Roshanlal Sodhi(Gurucharan Singh), his wife Roshan(Jennifer Mistry) and son Gogi
5) Hansraj Hathi(Azad Kavi), Komal(Ambika Ranjan) and son Goli(Kush Shah)
I did manage to get all the actors names, thanks to Wikipedia. The other characters include patrakar Popatlal Pandey(Shyam Pathak), shop owner Abdul, Rita reporter(running a news channel exclusively for Gokuldham named Kal Tak) , Nattu kaka(Ghanshyam Nayak) who is the incharge of Jethalal’s store, his nephew Baaga and Sundar(Mayur Vakani), brother of Daya.
Each of the characters have something unique about them. For eg ; Jethalal is a person who runs his own electronics store, but has a life filled with worries and tension. However, temporarily his tension is releived whenever he sees Babita Iyer, as he has a soft corner for her and respects her from the bottom of his heart. Similarly, Daya has a strange(or unique) style of speaking as compared to all other ladies and shows extreme fondness for her mother and brother. Tapu is the leader of his friend circle named Tapu Sena and is very mischeivous and playful for his age.
Atmaram Bhide is a teacher by profession and the society secretary while Taarak Mehta, Krishnan Iyer, Hansraj Hathi and Roshan Sodhi are writer, scientist, doctor and car mechanic respectively.
This show has managed to capture the audiences minds for the past approximately 3 years, mainly due to the different situations confronting Gokuldham society as a whole or each of the individual families, Jethalal in particular. Personally, each of the characters have been putting in their heart and soul into the show to get every shot/scene right(or perfect, in other words). This is one show where the facial expressions of each of the characters are given as much importance as the story, scenes or events. However, as mentioned in the Cons, overacting or too much of it at times gets irritating.
Each of the wives in the society often get together in ’Kitty parties’ or even in daily chores such as buying vegeatbles.It gets particularly interesting when we see each and every family in the society addresing or caring for the other when one person or family faces a problem. For eg : There was an episode when Daya falls down while trying to break the pot during Gokulashtami and the entire society were praying for her while she was unconscious in the hospital. In another recent episode, Atmaram Bhide got a fake lottery E-mail and the society members decided to get together and track down the fraudsters.There have been several other instances indicating the helpfulness of the society.
Episodes are dedicated to celebrating every major festival in the country.Very often, celebrities come to promote their film or show, such as Ajay Devgan, John Abraham, Irfan Pathan, Raju Shrivastav, among others.
As each episode unfolds, Taarak Mehta decides to unravel his short speeches, each filled with a unique message. This itself is unique as no other show has introduced or expreimented with this concept.
On the whole, this show can be considered as a joy ride for those having a funny bone and those wanting to de-stress from their daily stressful activities.