The TV selling its endless sagas of melodrama and family intrigue can stay the domain of parents, aunties and uncles. Web series are where it’s at when it comes to the problems of adulting for Tamil Nadu’s 20-somethings. And the latest to join the bandwagon is Gautham Vasudev Menon’s home banner Ondraga Entertainment.
Hitting YouTube at 6pm on December 8 is Ondraga Entertainment’s Weekend Machan, a web series about four young IT employees who slog their way through the week just for a chance to enjoy life on the weekends.
The snatches from the show’s teasers, give us four young bachelors, Vikky aka Vikranth, Naari aka Narendran, Nithy alias Nithyananthan and Boops alias Boopathy. While they struggle through Monday to Friday in straight-laced formals and wearing painful grimaces, Saturday unleashes the lungis, bermudas, alcohol, cigarettes and happy faces all around. So, it comes as no surprise, that Nithy’s grand plan for national progress and individual happiness is a reworking of the weekday-weekend structure.
“Weekends are the only time we’re happy. So, what if we change this concept a bit?” he says in the show’s teaser. “One day working, one day leave. Monday working, Tuesday leave. Wednesday working,Thursday leave.Friday working, Saturday leave. And Sunday… Sunday is already a holiday, let’s not disturb that. If we implement this concept, happiness will overflow, we’ll have a heaven on earth,” he says.
Directed by Shammeer Sultan, the series stars Kiran Naig, Sudhakar, Shravan Ramakrishnan and Balaji Radhakrishnan. Shammeer had earlier shot to fame as one of the four young directors involved in Aviyal, the anthology of films produced by Karthik Subbaraj’s Bench Talkies.
Talking to Deccan Chronicle, Shammeer had said of the series concept, “I have had this particular idea for years now! I worked at an IT company for eight years and weekends were everything for us. Everyone hates Monday and I wanted to weave my story around this fact by incorporating humour. This series consists of eight episodes.”
Watch the teaser for Weekend Machan here: