I find this to be a really good comedy sitcom for family audience in Malayalam. If you are looking for a realistic family drama that will make you laugh out loud and relieve all your stress even in the toughest of times, then this sitcom that began its run on Flowers TV during the depressing period of 2020 is definitely your best bet. While "Uppum Mulakum" excelled in its accurate presentation of a typical multi child family in Kerala and the accompanying family vibes it generated, Chakkapazham's main strength lies in the plethora of comedy/humour moments and dialogues that it has produced up until now. I find both of these sitcoms to be equally great in their respective categories and fully achieving what they set out to achieve and I don't think it is fair and right to both to do a comparison between them. It was delightful to watch Sreekumar's transformation from the immature/young "Lolithan" in "Marimayam" to the matured family man "Uthaman" in Chakkapazham". Shruthi Rajanikanth portraying "Painkili" and Rafi, a mini screen new comer, enacting the role of "Sumesh" are both showing great potential as actors and seems to be the two best contributions of this sitcom.
This is one of the few sitcoms I have watched where I equally liked all its characters/actors .But if asked to choose a favorite, I would say that my favorite character in the series is Painkili/ Pinky whom I found to be always lighthearted,positive and cool. Although immature and childlike by nature, she manages to take good care of her only son and responsibly perform all her motherly duties to him and this is where I felt great admiration towards the young actress Shruthi Rajanikanth for pulling both sides of that character, namely one being that of a matured mother/wife and the other being that of an immature sibling/sister in law so effortlessly. Honestly, and as is evident from my writing over here, I became a huge fan of the actress. Painkili is almost always cheerful, handles criticisms with grace and is not easily offended except for the cases when the offender is her dear brother Sumesh with whom she fights occasionally, but clearly those fights are mostly out of love towards her younger brother than anger. Somehow this character reminds me of Jake Peralta of Brooklyn 99, another always positive and cool sitcom character that I greatly love and admire.
The Direction, Camera , Sound and other departments behind this series are all simply awesome and state of the art when it comes to Malayalam small screens. But I think a major credit for the success of this sitcom should rightfully be given to its script writer Shameer Khan who scripted all of is episodes till date(ep 161). I don't know his age, but at least by appearance he seems to be a young person still in his twenties and I think this sort of helped to ensure that all the characters as well as their dialogues penned by him were equally liked by the youth and elderly. A direct consequence of this is that the elderly great grandmother of the house(Achamma) has such a huge fan following among the youth. Even though conceived as a comedy series, the Cast and Crew of "Chakkapazham" have made it seem so realistic that a large number of viewers while watching, considers the characters to be a real family living in a real house. The You tube comment section of the uploaded episodes are a testament to this statement.
