<img style="float: left;" title="Rahul daCunha" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2025/nov/Rahul_e.jpg" alt="Rahul daCunha" width="200" height="69" />In one of the early episodes of The <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/bollywood-news/article/the-family-man-3-dialogue-writer-sumit-arora-clarifies-the-tiger-reference-23605392" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Family Man</a>: Season 3, an exhausted Srikant Tiwari (Manoj Bajpayee) asks his son, Atharva, why his daughter, Dhriti is in such a bad mood.
&ldquo;&lsquo;They&rsquo; have a lot on their mind, &lsquo;they&rsquo; are climate champions, LGBT warriors, &lsquo;they&rsquo; are social media influencers, &lsquo;they&rsquo; are worried about a lot of things,&rdquo; the son says.
&ldquo;Who are &lsquo;they&rsquo;? Your sister is one person, who are &lsquo;they&rsquo;,&rdquo; the flummoxed Srikant asks.
The son, with an irritated eye roll explains, &ldquo;See Pa, Dhriti equals &lsquo;they&rsquo; &mdash; Dhriti likes to be called &lsquo;they, them&rsquo; not &lsquo;she, her&rsquo;.&rdquo;
&ldquo;But why?&rdquo; Srikant asks
&ldquo;Oh ho, Dad, she&rsquo;s a non-binary person.&rdquo;
After a beat Bajpayee asks. &ldquo;Accha this &lsquo;they&rsquo; aur &lsquo;them&rsquo;, Hindi main kya bolenge?&rdquo;
The son for once is perplexed, he says, confused, &ldquo;Hindi mein iske pronouns invent nahi huey&rsquo;.&rdquo;
While the audience laughs out loud at the <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/sunday-mid-day/article/from-brews-to-booze-heres-a-complete-gen-z-guide-to-mumbais-coolest-hangouts-23504825" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Gen Z </a>speak, Srikant looks defeated, wondering which is harder, handling his daughter&rsquo;s vocabulary, or the dangers that the country faces.
No napalm bomb can frighten him, but non-binary jargon terrifies the super spy. For the uninitiated, The Family Man is a web series about a spy (Bajpayee) living a double life, working for TASC, a fictitious intelligence wing of the country while he performs menial household tasks for his middle-class family.&nbsp;
For me the show is a binge watch, each season growing in ambition and scale. Season 1 got you hooked immediately. The sheer hilarity of a spy wondering if he should diffuse a bomb, or attend a parent-teacher meeting. In that moment, when Manoj Bajpayee&rsquo;s character looked more terrified at what might befall him facing the school principal vis a vis a RDX bomb, I knew I was hooked.&nbsp;
I&rsquo;m an OTT obsessive &mdash; I watch a movie at night, binge watch web series, a habit picked up in the COVID-ers &mdash; but I&rsquo;m harsh on a web series. Something has to grab me, an atmosphere, an antagonist, very often it&rsquo;s an actor &mdash; the Family Man, premiered in 2019, and I&rsquo;m still emotionally with the show, its horrifying political events, married with its humour, result in a show with a beating heart.
The <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/bollywood-news/photo/ott-releases-this-week-netflix-jiohotstar-prime-video-sunny-sanskari-stranger-things-5-108448" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">OTT </a>universe, the bosses in the boardrooms, look at web shows, by their ability to create spinoffs, seasons, sequels. But most of all, they look for sustainable characters &mdash; characters with a want and an objective that sustains across seasons. In Season 1 and 2, Srikant got his antagonists &mdash; &nbsp;in the third season, we have a new antagonist, the shit hits the ceiling, the government believes Srikant is a suspect in his on boss&rsquo;s death, his own family crumbles around him, his wife has filed for divorce, his kids feel badly neglected and his target, in this case the mighty Jaideep Ahlawat rides majestically into the sunset, leaving Srikant dying &mdash; a season 4 is set up, will he live? Will his family reconcile? Will Ahlawat&rsquo;s &ldquo;Rukhma&rdquo; be caught?&nbsp;
But most important, we the viewer ask will the <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/sunday-mid-day/article/attend-this-comedy-show-in-mumbai-that-shines-light-on-judgements-faced-by-women-23575299" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">humour </a>sustain. The brilliance of the show is the humor, sustained over its tensest moments &mdash; &nbsp;here&rsquo;s an example: Srikant wants to confess to his son, his real profession. The family is gathered around the dinner table, along with Srikant&rsquo;s best friend, JK (Sharib Hashmi). Srikant says to his son, nervous&hellip;
&ldquo;Beta I have a secret to tell you&hellip;&rdquo;
The son asks terrified, &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t tell me I&rsquo;m adopted.&rdquo;
&ldquo;No, no, nothing like that &mdash; I&rsquo;m an agent.&rdquo;
The son is relieved, &lsquo;Ah ok a travel agent, right?&rdquo;
&ldquo;No, son, I&rsquo;m a secret agent&rdquo;
The son is finally impressed, &ldquo;Wow that&rsquo;s so cool, wait till I tell my friends &mdash; do you have a code name, like tiger, lion, cheetah, panther, bear, zebra?&rdquo; Srikant pauses, &ldquo;No, beta I don&rsquo;t work in a circus, I work for the government.&rdquo;
Maybe Season 4 could be called &ldquo;Family Man 4: For he, she, they, them.&rdquo;
Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, filmmaker and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com

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The son, with an irritated eye roll explains, “See Pa, Dhriti equals ‘they’ — Dhriti likes to be called ‘they, them’ not ‘she, her’.”

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