The Pickle Factory: The Dice Media Show Is An Exercise In Inanity

I HAVE COME TO REALISE that there is variety in bad shows. Some make you want to tear your hair and some compel you to question life’s choices. Some infuriate and some defeat. But with The Pickle Factory, the new Dice Media show, I have realised there is another category comprising series which are frustratingly vapid, seemingly endless and as harmless as they come. They demand nothing from you, neither attention, investment or interest, and accept their status as second-screen outings with passion. You are watching them with scant attention, possibly with a phone in hand. They are not just okay with it, they even encourage it.

Directed by Vishwajoy Mukherjee, The Pickle Factory is a ten-episode exercise in inanity that makes art out of being frothy. A lot happens and yet nothing does. There are a host of characters and yet not one makes an imprint. Silly things make news and sillier plot points are treated with life-changing urgency. It is a marvel really. If a bubble wrap was a show it would be called The Pickle Factory.

Mahika (Tanya Maniktala), a girl in her 20s, gets fired from her job in Delhi. A viral rant later, she finds herself living with her grandmother (Sohila Kapoor) and two uncles (Naveen Kaushik and Gagan Dev Riar) at her ancestral house. They have a family pickle business and Mahika joins as an intern.

To say that a lot happens in the house without making pickles would be to put things mildly. Nothing happens in The Pickle Factory, although the assumption is of constant movement. Mahika’s two uncles, Jojo (Riar) and Chandu (Kaushik) share a Dwight and Jim chemistry where they are constantly bickering and playing pranks on each other. Then there is Deb (Ritwik Bhowmik), a boy besotted with Mahika since they shared a kiss when they were kids. Deb also works at the factory. Other colleagues include a trite intern, a hypochondriac man and a foodie accountant.

Of the many wonders in the show, the one that reigns supreme is that it took three people (Mohak Pajni, Adhiraj and Saransh Sharma) to write The Pickle Factory when it comes across as something children would write in their idle times. Sample these instances: there is a whole episode on lice which is tied to the break-up of the intern who assumes his partner is leaving because she texted, “sorry for the lies” that later was revealed to be a typo for “lice”. In another episode, Chandu meets his erstwhile English teacher and keeps writing love letters to her only for her to correct their grammar. I stand corrected. Even children have more imagination.

The second amusing bit is the actors who agreed to be on the show. Riar, Kaushik and Bhowmik are excellent in their craft, capable of elevating middling writing. But here they are fated to deal with air. It is painful to see them trying to rise above the material only to look silly on its behalf. I don’t want to sound too obvious but it really is a pickle.

The Pickle Factory is currently streaming on WAVES.