Mind the Malhotras review: Mini Mathur, Cyrus Sahukar’s comedy is missing the magic ingredient

Mind the Malhotras

Cast: Cyrus Sahukar, Mini Mathur, Anandita Pagnis, Nikki Sharma

Rating: 3/5

If you have grown up on a diet of comic family dramas like Dekh Bhai Dekh, Family No 1, Khichdi, Baa Bahu Aur Baby, Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai, Mind the Malhotras isn’t exactly how mom makes it. You might find that the salt is not to your taste or that magic ingredient that makes it the ultimate comfort food is missing. A little bland, it is still filling though.

Why the food reference, you ask. Shefali, played by Mini Mathur, is addressed as Shef by her onscreen husband Rishabh, (Cyrus Sahukar). She is fond of trying different recipes to boot. There is a lot cooking in their married life too -- she and Rishabh have been married for about 15 years and are visiting a counsellor to get that spark back in their lives. Back in the bedroom, the couple fails miserably at role-play and end up binge-watching Master Chef instead. With twin teenaged daughters and an eight-year-old son Yohaan or Yoyo, the two are finding it hard to keep the fire burning in their relationship as they struggle to be good parents.

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Shefali, as a mother, has her own ways of bringing up her kids and comes up with rather innovative solutions to her parenting woes. From suggesting Yoyo’s friend to make trouble in order to keep her son away from some, Shefali appears to be a selfish, calculative mother with questionable ethics. Cyrus’s Rishabh, too, struggles to survive the hardships of being a perfect father.

The show scores poorly on expectations of those looking for frequent laughs. In fact they are so infrequent that this show could have benefitted from a pre-recorded laugh track. There is no dearth of comical situations with the fiery couple trying its best to spice it up but it seldom translates into rib-tickling moments. One rare find deserves a mention. Shefali keeps asking her son to spell random words while multi-tasking in a kitchen and the younger one ends up spelling ‘kachche’ (underwear) correctly.

The situations are funny but lack a punch as far as the dialogues are concerned. The episodes can be watched as light entertainment but don’t compel you to binge watch without a break. Sadly, it appears to turn into lethargic therapy sessions with every episode as Shefali and Rishabh share their struggles of being a couple and parents with the Urdu-loving therapist. Though we feel the connect with them, it feels like being schooled about what not to do in a relationship in a non-humourous way.

Anandita Pagnis as Jia and Nikki Sharma as Dia have little to do with mostly Jason D’Souza’s Yoyo emerging as Shefali and Rishabh’s major source of tension. Sushmita Mukherjee plays her part of an uninvited mother-in-law well; some more of her would have helped the show.

The Malhotras often go overboard with their elaborate plans by rehearsing their lines before meeting their kids’ friends. Their thing-to-do on a Goa poolside is to read a book about Sri Lanka. The Malhotras needed to up their game if they wanted to be on our binge-watch list. As of now, they are somewere there with dal-chawal minus the advantage of aam ka achaar.

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