Mrs Pammi Pyarelal with Vidya Balan who was on the show to promote her film

Hum sab ke apne-apne, personal, private tote, i.e. parrots, hote hain. No one can see these totas, but they mandarao around our heads and nest there. These totas are our antennas to the world and are the first to react to food, people, events, TV shows, in-laws.

If you are in good company and having a jolly good time, your totas swing about singing happy jingles. But if, for example, in-laws arrive unannounced with four-four suitcases, totas faint and no amount of resuscitation helps. But the instant in-laws’ car leaves your driveway, totas come to life, singing, “Five, six, seven, eight... nana-nana na-na, nana-nana na-na.” And if you are having mind-blowing sex, the totas walk about with a dazed look, exhausted but smiling.
I have three totas and my totas are TV addicts. And lately they’ve taken to a serial called Mrs Pammi Pyarelal (Colors). Every evening, when it’s time for the show, they start pecking on my head. They are gentle initially, but as the telecast time nears, the pecking is decidedly vicious.
I have no choice but to switch on the TV. Bus, then toh my totas lie in a line on their stomachs, mundis resting on their hands, and peck my head only if I try to reach for my phone. Perforce I have been watching this show which is about Param Gulati, a young man who has left his garib ma and apahij behen in a small town and moved to Mumbai to become an actor. He has a friend in Mumbai, Rahul, and a guardian, Pandeyji.
After failing to find accommodation, Rahul and Param pose as Mr and Mrs Pyarelal — Param lathers and shaves himself clean and then gets into falsies, chiffon sarees and high heels — and move in as PGs at the Faujdar Mansion. The head of this madhouse is Dadi, kamini faujdar, an ex-jailor.
My totas love it every time Pammi arrives, smacking her red lips and swaying her large hips. I even heard one of them blowing kisses. But my totas sit up and start praying when Ranjit, Dadi’s third son, arrives. Like our good-old Ranjeet from films, this Ranjit is a scary hawas ka pujari. Pammi-who-is-actually-Param starts babbling every time Ranjit starts crawling towards her, making wolf-like expressions.
But Ranjit is not the only imbecile in the Faujdar Mansion. There’s big bahu Amrita, who only hyperventilates, and her husband who only says the most inappropriate things because he’s mostly talking to someone else on his Bluetooth. Then there’s second bahu, Mohini, a has-been actress who harbours many delusions, Dadi’s granddaughter No. 1, Gayatri, who talks like Umrao Jaan, No. 2 Minty, who talks non-stop.
Here’s at least one kalesh per episode. It began when Amrita overhears Param practising his lines and thinks Pammi and Rahul are not being able to have a child. To help them, she dashes to Noodle Baba who, while some ching-chong Chinese music plays in the background, hands her a magical apple and says, “Exactly nine months after the apple is fed to Pammi, she’ll become a mummy”. Amrita first force-feeds Pammi and then tells Pammi-who-is-actually-Param that she’ll become garabwati soon. Param goes mental trying to puke out the apple, scared that the chamatkari seb will make him pregnant. My totas laughed so much that they rolled off my head.
I don’t plan to reinstate them unless they promise to stop pecking and forcing me to watch this idiots ka mela everyday. Once a week is fine.