Why 'Pati Patni Aur Woh Do' is a franchise exploring marriages, not roving-eye husbands

Last week, another instalment of Pati Patni Aur Woh Do hit cinemas, this one with Ayushmann Khurrana playing the husband who finds himself caught in a host of misunderstandings and suspected of cheating. Just don’t call Khurrana’s Prajapati Pandey as the one with the roving eye. For writer-director Mudassar Aziz, the idea is “a little premature and trigger happy”.

Aziz, whose credits include Khel Khel Mein, Single Salma and Happy Bhaag Jaayegi, calls Pandey “straight jacketed, spotless” and a wife loyalist. “The challenge I threw to myself as a writer was what if you had to make a Pati Patni Aur Woh instalment with a man that will not slip. How would you create comedy with that?” he says.

Set in Prayajrag, the film sees Pandey as a forest officer who is devoted to his wife (Wamiqa Gabbi) but finds his life turn upside down when a friend (Sara Ali Khan) seeks his help amidst a crisis. Indulging her results in him having to lie to his wife repeatedly and playing a game of pretence, which but of course has repercussions.

It was the case in Aziz’s Kartik Aaryan-starring Pati Patni Aur Woh too. “What I had addressed in it was boredom in marriage and when partners don’t speak about it to each other,” says Aziz. “And then, I very strongly made the wife and the girlfriend come together in the second half and bludgeon the man to a point that he got caught by the cops and spent nights in jail.”

For Aziz, amidst the laughs, it is also necessary to throw in a few societal issues. “Here, it is how much our society believes what they just hear or see without verifying,” he says. “We are living in times when people are quick to term somebody as somebody’s murderer, somebody as somebody’s oppressor, somebody a terrorist and somebody a philanderer. We are so quick with our judgments and judge a book by its cover alone.”

It’s why Aziz sees the immediate reaction to Pandey’s character just by the trailer as “a wonderful coincidence” and one that only proves the point he is trying to make. The Pati Patni Aur Woh world for him is rather a way to explore his fascination with the marital bond through the prism of humour. Not every issue pertaining to a marriage, he feels, has to be dealt in a heavy-handed, dramatic way.

“This is the only relationship that is not bound by DNA. It is the only one relationship that starts with a contract,” says Aziz. “It automatically makes the relationship quite layered. Not only are you accepting somebody in your life as a partner forever but also in weird ways their family and expecting them to accept your family. And you are expecting a tonne of people to suddenly start getting along with one another.”

Aziz sees it as a situation ripe for confusion and comedy. He adds that there’s always “a slightly voyeuristic side” to it too, in that people are always curious about discussing somebody else’s relationship.

Prod him on why he opted for Khuranna for the role, and Aziz says: “You need somebody who is accepted in the space of things happening to him as opposed to him making things happen. Ayushmann Khurrana is the country’s favourite man in a situation, in a problem. There is this funny vulnerability on his face. When he looks at you with a soft expression and tells you his truth, there is no element of naughtiness in that. Prajapati is always vulnerable. Ayushmann sort of self-selected himself for the script more than anything else. I could not think of forwarding the franchise with anyone else than him.”

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