The finale ends on a sweet note but leaves a lot of questions unanswered!
Y-Film’s digital platform is setting new benchmarks for web series. Starting right from A Man’s World, it has kept on giving wholesome entertainment with their sweet, simple, short web series. The latest one Sex Chat with Pappu & Papa, not only maintains the feat but also forays into the educational story a bit. The series revolves around a 7yr old boy, Pappu/ Punit Watsa, and his Papa, Anand Watsa. The father son duo often land up in a soup where, Pappu, being a 7 year old has a lot of curiosity regarding taboo topics, and hence asks, what one may consider, embarrassing questions to his parents. His father, a torch bearer of 21st century dads, instead of shooing away the questions with old school answers like “You’ll know when you grow up” or “…because God wanted it that way” actually takes up the task of answering the question with diligence keeping in mind the sensitivities of Indian audience.
A web series about sex education might sound like a crazy idea, but trust me for a society like ours where taboos are as persistent as potholes on roads, this web series is a great initiative. Over the past month, the series was released in 5 part episodes online. Short, crisp and funny –the episodes explored topics like condoms, periods, pregnancy, and masturbation and in the finale, homosexuality.
In episode 5, Papa (Anand Tiwari) not only answers questions asked by his son Pappu (Kabir Sajid) but also pays heed to ignorance of his own dad, Vishwanath Watsa (Sachin Pilgaonkar). Mamma, Shireen Shaikh Watsa (Sanjeeda Shaikh) is in the labour room giving birth to her second child. While in the hospital, the family meets Nikhil, long time friend of Anand. It is revealed to Pappu and Dada that Nikhil is gay and obviously the two of them have a lot of questions about the topic. A country where an entire community’s existence is lawfully negated with the existence of Section 377, this episode was a pretty bold step. The questions by the curious duo are answered informatively, in the usual light humour. Abish Mathew and YFilms Ladies Room stars Saba Azad and Shreya Dhanwanthary make interesting cameos. Though a decent attempt, the finale, except for bringing Vishwanath in the picture in person, offers nothing new. A finale is supposed to be a grand event, where there is a conflict, a twist, or at least an explosive problem that poses threat to whatever has been built up until now. But Pappu and Papa finale maintains the usual approach of the series which by this time has become pretty predictable. But still we cannot, and will not overlook, the mature and progressive point of view and of course the laughs that this episode delivers. You will find many funny instances in the episode that will tickle your funny bone, especially Saba and Shreya’s cameo. We really have to appreciate the fact how the topic is approached, in every episode for that matter, without being too preachy or vulgar.
What's Hot
Before anything can we take a second to appreciate Sachin Pilgaonkar, who has the combined talent of everyone on board in this web series! The actor has delivered a brilliant and funny performance, clearly overshadowing everyone else’s. At the launch event of the series, he took a supportive stand for the LGBT community when the topic was addressed by a journalist and generated a round of applause from the people present.
Ashish Patil has done a good job for a first time director, with this series. He had said earlier in a statment “Sex education is not even provided in most schools. And when done... it is not appropriately curated or delivered. Misinformation or lack of information cause further confusion and problems. Which is why you have 40-year-old men writing in to sex columns asking if they will go blind if they masturbate. Research clearly shows that sex talk with parents is directly linked to safer sexual behaviour. This is our attempt to bring this important conversation out of the closet. So come on, let's talk about sex.”
The series has been dubbed in six Indian languages Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bengali, and also subtitled in 10 international languages, including English, Chinese, French, Dutch, Spanish, German, Bahasa, Malay and Thai. It is written by Gopal Datt and Devang Kakkad with story supervision by Amritpal Bindra and Anand Tiwari.
Talking about acting we could hardly complain. Anand Tiwari is a brilliant actor. Kabir Sajid’s cuteness is not the only wow factor about him, his talent as an actor is sure to take him a long way. He is born with the X factor. Sanjeeda, looks damn gorgeous and for a minute you won’t be able to recognise her, though not much is given to her role, but in the fourth episode about periods she does her part well.
What's Not
Though well acted, and well ideated, the finale lacks the power punch and ends up being a mediocre wrap up of Sex Chat.
Despite his bright intention, Ashish only succeeds to deliver a series that should only be watched for its entertainment value and not as an informative series. There is a lot that is lacking. Agreed, Sex Chat with Pappu & Papa is not meant to be taken as a blueprint to approach the ‘The Talk’ with your children but many important questions are left unanswered or left un-asked in it. The informative part would only be informative if a kid knows the meaning of sperm, vagina, penis, sex and many such other terms to begin with. A kid’s curiosity knows no end. It doesn’t end if you explain pregnancy with data transfer and data cords, but it goes on to answer thousand other questions! Given the format of short web series, this glaring error can also be given a pass. But the Leviathan sized importance of sex-ed is not explained in the entirety of web series. A bad experience by Papa during his childhood with a condom doesn’t really gives out anyone watching the series a reason to gear up for a similar talk with their children. Sexual abuse, self abuse, accidental pregnancy, STD’s, or a kid getting answers from a source you should not be trusting – just a small list of reasons on top of my mind that could have been at least tangentially touched. Despite its good efforts the series remains superficial about the subject, probably intentionally to maintain the tone of light hearted humour. The content has been said to be heavily researched and ratified by some of the foremost medical experts of the country, but truly lacks anything that did not look like taken directly off from Google. After the series this heavily researched claim looks merely like Nawazuddin Siddiqui's dialogue from The Lunchbox "Maa kehti thi bolne se baat me dum ata hai".
Overall, the series should be applauded for addressing a topic which is still hush-hush in our country. But if you seek information, Google will be a better choice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boiwcx23GHE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jec4BZzvUl4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y963vexc2FM
About the Author
Rajat Tripathi
An electrical engineer by degree, but a writer at heart. Good movies make my soul happy. Bad ones make my wit happy.
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