I watched the Tamil audio (Oru Chinna Family Story) of this orig. Telugu series on Zee5 though I usually prefer the orig. Language audio, because Zee5 subtitling is sometimes on sometimes off and I can follow Tamil without subs!
OCFS is a slice of life, heart warming narration with large dollops of amusement, sometimes black humour thrown in. The plot is smoothly carried by the outstanding acting especially Tulasi's brilliant portrayal of Rukmini as the simple minded devoted mother of Mahesh (Sangeeth Shobhan who also does an excellent job). Rukmini's mother, Mahesh' Paati or as he rather coarsely refers to her as Kizhavi (old woman) is beautifully rendered by Prameela Rani. To be fair, every actor was superb in his/her role.
The sets are a realistic lower middle class home in a Telugu speaking small town (haha got to be politically correct these days with AP/TS).
Rukmini has molly coddled her only child Mahesh from the day he was born and spoilt him rotten. The father tries his best to instil some sense of responsibility in Mahesh but to no avail as Rukmini always allows the child to get away with whatever he does. Mahesh is therefore an idle, spoilt youth barely passing high school and fails to clear his B. Tech. He doesnt even bother to get a job. Rukmini always annoyingly offers to make payasam for Mahesh as a panacea for all problems. The Paati is obsessed with her TV serials and in getting a new remote. She is very amusing with her pithy comments.
One fine day the father suddenly dies. Mahesh starts getting repeated phone calls from loan recovery agents to pay the EMI on his father's loan of 25 lac which the family was not even aware of. News spreads and rumours circulate in the colony about Mahesh's father having a possible "2nd SetUp", a euphemism for a second family unbeknown to Rukmini.
The loan hounds become aggressive and Rukmini is at her wits end. Eventually Mahesh befriends one of them (Getup Srinu) as Anna who takes pity on him and gets him a job at the loan recovery call centre.
Dont want to add Spoilers, do watch this series of 5 episodes if you havent already, it really is enjoyable with lots of humour, realistic situations, poignant moments et al.
