Tamil Nadu might be glued to the telly for its daily updates on Bigg Boss , but beneath the layer of repetitive soaps and hashtag-worthy reality shows, there’s Prabhuram Vyas’s Livin’ , on YouTube .
It’s not Living , with a ‘g’; it’s Livin’ with an apostrophe. Right from the way the titles pop up, everything about this relationship comedy gets a thumbs-up.
When was the last time a Tamil web series made you guffaw without inconveniencing your senses? Livin’ features a 20-something couple who understand one another’s frailties and sensibilities by moving in together. An additional character (also a freeloader) is thrown into the mix, primarily to annoy the living daylights out of them.
“Haritha is pretty blunt and bold,” says Amrutha Srinivasan, who plays one half of the couple. Indeed, Amrutha’s character is bold, for she questions patriarchal society without mincing words. Her partner, Harish (Kanna Ravi), on the contrary, is a cat-on-the-wall, who’s not worried about what happens around him. Whether it’s his sister or his house owner, Harish takes a backseat when it comes to informing them about his girlfriend, while Haritha doesn’t hesitate to drop truth bombs whenever required.
Interestingly, Ravi shot for the entire series with an injured leg; he had met with an accident on the set of a yet-to-release film. At the end of the day, gimmickry and improvisations saved him. “The team started looking for another actor after the accident, but they came back to me because the director wanted me. The challenging aspect of the series, for me, was acting with an injured leg for 13 episodes,” shares Ravi.
The series makes room for humour by highlighting the living conditions of the couple, along with the presence of the third person in the equation, Sam (Naveen George Thomas). Sam brings the roof down by talking about Iranian movies, science fiction and artificial intelligence. “Sam is the friend you wouldn’t like to have,” laughs Naveen, while speaking about his character. When asked if there’s Vyas in Haritha, Harish, and Sam, the director agrees, “I haven’t reached the level of avoiding myself in my stories. People who know me tell me that my characters remind them of me.” The sentiment is echoed by Amrutha; she opines, “Haritha is Vyas’s female version.”
Seven episodes of Livin’ are out on the YouTube channel of Madras Central.
