Idhar Udhar (1985)

Idhar Udhar was the third sponsored program on television after Hum Log and Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi. It starred Ratna Pathak Shah and Supriya Pathak. It reached the cult status in just 13 episodes giving Ratna Pathak Shah the sobriquet of Queen of comedy and Aanand Mahendroo as the King of Comedy. A path-breaking concept of two working women Poonam (Supriya Pathak) and Sunita (Ratna Pathak) who keep a paying guest Kumar Bhairav A K, Ronnie Gonsalves (Ravi Baswani/ Tom Alter) while they themselves are paying guests of Aunty Briganza. Besides the paying guest, they have a regular visitor Sudhir, a vagabond (Liliput) who visits them often under the garb of doing their chores. They live together in one flat against all kinds of societal pressures. The writing was so fresh and progressive back in 1985 and is relevant even now. Mahendroo did a second season in 1999 where the women meet once again by chance and live in a rented flat owned by the erstwhile vagabond turned successful builder, Sudhir (Liliput).