Potluck(SonyLiv, 8 Episodes)

Starring Cyrus Sahukar,Saloni Khanna, Ira Dubey, Shikha Talsania,Jatin Sial,Kitu Gidwani

Directed by Rajshri Ojha

Rating: ***

There are no Robert De Niros and Shabana Azmis in this 8-episode family drama, each of which revolves around the family lunch/dinner get-together.

Potluck gives us a gallery of intelligent actors who know how to come into a familial clasp without looking like mannequins in Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Aapke Hain ‘Corn’.What I really liked about Potluck was that the Shastri parivar looks like a family. The quirks, the bickering, the rivalry and the nokjhonk is so well-written that I found myself chuckling . Most of us have heard at least some of the verbal exchanges in Potluck in our real life.

The sheer pleasure of meeting a “normal” family is so uncommon in our cinema and serials, Potluck wins you over by just looking giving us a family we recognize.Then there are the actors, all delightful in their spatial harmony.I was specially thrilled to have Kitu Gidwani back. She is still so lovely, and still refuses to play a walkover.As the Shatri matriarch she is all twisted mouthed and rolling eyed refusing to become putty in her children’s hands.

And so what if daughter Prerna(Shikha Talsania,delightfully natural) initially refuses to shift back home? Mama Shastri isn’t getting worked up about it. Papa Shastri(Jatin Sial)wants to kids around him at any cost.By hook and crook. The children heckle and snub him for his over-possessiveness. Yeah, I know. Haven’t we all been there, done it?

By ‘kids’ I mean sons Cyrus Sahukar(as deviously droll as ever) and Harman Singha(never seen the latter’s work before, not bad), their wives Ira Dubey and Saloni Khanna(both lending a distinct flavor to the bahu-wood) and the grand-kids one of whom insists on speaking in Telugu because of her nanny.

These are delightfully connectible characters in sticky familial situations that we all know. Like Papa Shastri making rude uncalled-for comments on the new Chinese television set gifted to his son by his father-in-law, or the daughter telling her new boyfriend(Siddhant Karnick) to stop trying to impress her with his bookish attitude.

Almost entirely character-driven Potluck is a cleverly written family drama with enough steam to see it through to the end. The food on the table is never exhausted. Neither is the banter.