Watch, brother, watch. Review on Dekh Bhai Dekh TV Serial

Making a comedy serial is a daunting task for any TV producer. Particularly in India, subtle comedies like those made by BBC just do not work. For that matter, comedy as a genre itself holds limited appeal to an audience which is addicted to its daily dose of loud and melodramatic saas-bahu tamasha. Hence, one rarely sees big time TV producers putting their money in comedies. In general, the Indian comedy scene is pathetic. Most comedies are quite banal if not slapstick. If it weren't for the laugh track, one wouldn't even know that a joke was just cracked. But once in a rare while, a beautiful comedy does come along. A true test of a successful comedy is the number of times it is re-run. (remember Charlie Chaplin, Lucille Ball, etc?) So, a serial like Dekh Bhai Dekh does pass muster. Produced by Jaya Bachchan's ''Saraswati audio-visuals'', it premiered in the pre-cable era in 1993 on Doordarshan's Metro channel. After a successful run of a year, it ended, only to re-appear on Sony a few years later. Now in the past 10 years, on Sony itself, it has re-run thrice, bringing back nostalgic memories.

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This is a show set in a joint family household, consisting of a Dadaji and Dadiji (Sushama Seth), their two sons, Baldev (Navin Nischal) and Sameer (Shekhar Suman) with their respective wives, Suhasini (Farida Jalal) and Chachi (Bhavana Balsaver). I really don't know Chachi's name in the serial – she is called Chachi by everyone. Further there are the kids, Sanju (Vishal Singh) and Kirti (teenage kids of Navin Nischal) and Vishal and Pinky (school going kids of Shekhar Suman). In addition to this family, there is their faithful servant, Karima (Devang).

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Each of the character is well etched out and episodes are woven around one character each separately. Hence we are able to know each person in and out. Dadaji is a lovable, forgetful soul who is naïve and is completely under the control of his social service obsessed wife, Dadiji. Dadi is a self righteous socialite who feels she can help around a lot. She is stern but is quite practical at times. Baldev is the hard working elder son who shares a loving relationship with his wife, Suhasini who runs a beauty parlour from her home. Sameer is the smart younger brother who runs a business of his own and is the funniest, wittiest and naughtiest of the lot, while his wife is the dumb-wit but sincere and opinionated writer.

The teenage kids do bring in a great deal of life to the going ons. Particular mention is of Sanju (Vishal Singh) who is a bumbling and innocent do-gooder who is always rubbing the wrong side of his hot-tempered girlfriend Shilpa (Urvashi Dholakia). He is mostly in his undies and shows a great deal of skin (he actually shows his butt, a first for Indian television, in one of the episodes where he emerges out of a bath in a huff). However, the star of the show is Shekhar Suman, who was hitherto a flop actor, and got a fresh lease of life with this serial. Overall, the comic timing displayed by all the actors is just top-rate and the situations written are quite believable.

With a top rated cast, great dialogues from Lilliput, the midget actor who makes cameo appearances once in a while and a brilliant direction from Anand Mahendroo, this serial is a winner and watchable again and again!