Chumbak Review: A Warm, Well-Cast Sitcom That Runs Out of Room for Its Own Characters

Aatish Kapadia and JD Majethia know how to create neighbourhoods that feel lived-in. There is always something comforting about a group of families living cheek by jowl, knowing far too much about each other and having absolutely no concept of personal boundaries. Chumbak Colony taps straight into that familiarity.

Five families, eight episodes, and barely 30 minutes per episode should make for an easy, breezy watch. And for the most part, it does. I laughed consistently through Chumbak, enjoyed spending time with its characters, and found myself wishing the show had given several of them more room to breathe.

Because beneath all the sitcom chaos, Chumbak is actually interested in something more substantial: relationships and compromise.

The catalyst is Rajni (Neena Gupta) and Kuku (Deven Bhojani), an elderly couple who decide to divorce. At first, it seems like a classic sitcom premise designed to get the entire colony involved in someone else's business. But there is more going on here.

Kuku is dealing with dementia. What makes their relationship particularly poignant is the irony in their behaviour. He remembers everyone's names except his wife's. She, meanwhile, seems to remember very few names, and he has spent years quietly helping her navigate that world. Even as his own memory deteriorates, Rajni is the one left picking up the pieces when he gets things wrong.

But Rajni's problem isn't really that she no longer loves her husband. In fact, she continues to look after him, his belongings and his everyday needs. They remain under the same roof. What she seems to want is not necessarily a divorce from Kuku, but a divorce from the responsibility of being Kuku's caregiver.

She wants a life of her own.

That is a surprisingly mature idea to place at the centre of a sitcom, and I found myself wishing the show had explored it more deeply. It raises uncomfortable questions about marriage, ageing and the point at which companionship can begin to feel like an obligation. The show doesn't necessarily have all the answers, but the fact that it raises those questions gives Chumbak more substance than its lightweight format initially suggests.

And that is perhaps the recurring theme across the colony. Everyone is negotiating some version of a relationship—marriage, friendship, family or expectations—and everyone seems to have their own definition of what "adjustment" means.

The problem is that there are simply too many people for the show to explore all of this properly.

Five couples across eight episodes, each under half an hour, is a lot to accommodate. The characters are distinct enough—you rarely confuse one family with another—but several are inevitably reduced to fragments. I found myself wanting more of almost everyone, particularly Dharmendra and Kiran. Just when you begin to understand their dynamic, the show moves elsewhere.

That overcrowding also contributes to the slight dip in the middle. Once the initial novelty wears off, some situations begin to feel repetitive, and a few jokes become predictable. I suspect Chumbak would actually benefit enormously from either fewer families or more episodes. The characters don't need reinvention; they simply need time.

Thankfully, the ensemble keeps the show afloat.

Neena Gupta and DeChumbak Review: A Warm, Well-Cast Sitcom That Runs Out of Room for Its Own Charactersven Bhojani are terrific, particularly because they play their relationship as something that has accumulated years of history rather than simply serving the plot. There is warmth, irritation, familiarity and exhaustion in their interactions.

Sumeet Raghavan is another major reason the show works. His character spends much of the series in women's clothing, but thankfully, the costume itself is never treated as the joke. He remains the character throughout. There is a wonderful ease to the performance, as though this is simply another day at work for someone who is an actor on a popular comedy show and accustomed to playing women.

The scene at his daughter's school captures this beautifully. He arrives in costume and there is an initial awkwardness, but the situation quickly shifts because everyone knows who he is. His celebrity status effectively protects him from the embarrassment one might expect. Even his daughter benefits from that fame when she gets into trouble. It's a small, funny observation about celebrity—and about how quickly society changes its rules when someone is famous.

Helly Shah is wonderfully stupid. And I mean that as a compliment.

Her character takes things literally, misses what everyone else seems to understand and operates with an almost endearing lack of guile. The people around her have, by now, adapted to her particular brand of stupidity, which makes the situations even funnier. What hurts, though, is her absolute trust in a husband who doesn't quite deserve it. Again, there is something more human underneath the comedy.

Sumeet Vyas goes in the opposite direction. He is so controlled and still that it becomes almost unsettling. The calmer he is, the more restless the scene becomes. It is an interesting performance precisely because he doesn't try to compete with the louder comic energy around him.

The supporting cast is strong, too. Helly Shah makes an impression, Amyra Dastur gets some lovely moments, and Bhau Kadam, despite having a relatively small role, makes every appearance count.

And when the comedy clicks—particularly when situational humour and clever dialogue arrive together—Chumbak is genuinely funny. This isn't a show where I spent half the time waiting for the next laugh. I laughed throughout.

The season ends on a cliffhanger, setting up another eight episodes. Ronit Roy's entry is intriguing enough to make me curious about where the colony goes next. More importantly, Season 2 has the opportunity to address the one thing holding this season back: space.

Give these characters more of it.

Chumbak is a warm, funny and surprisingly thoughtful sitcom that understands relationships better than its lightweight packaging might suggest. It doesn't always have enough time to explore those relationships as deeply as it wants to. But there is enough charm here to make the colony worth another visit.

Stream Chumbak on Netflix, and spend some time in a colony where the laughs come easy, but the relationships linger a little longer.