SUNAINA
Series One Synopsis
A fifteen year old girl called Sunaina Mathur and the crazy world she lives in. A dysfunctional family, a crazy set of friends, and a school where you break all the rules.
SUNAINA is a half hour family sitcom where each time, you enter the world of Sunaina and her friends and deal with her bizarre problems and their even more bizarre solutions.
What makes it all bizarre is Sunaina’s GIFT. Her dreams tend to come true! Either on an actual level or a philosophical level. BUT…her dreams are not to be ignored. And are the crux of every episode.
This uncanny ability is a close guarded secret between Sunaina and her group of close friends. Her family does not know about it.
How her day will go is dictated by her cryptic dreams, which she must share with her friends! The dreams are like unsolved mysteries, and the bulk of the story is based around how she and her friends decipher it and set out to solve it.
If the dream is something good, then she and her friends look forward to solving it. If its something bad, she and her friends cook up a plan and will do all they can to offset it.
But as a constant, every day, Sunaina gets up and decides to solve a problem related to her dream. And how she creates a problem bigger than the problem she dreamt about is the inherent comedy of errors of the series.
The dreams could be about herself, her family, her friends, her school teachers, people she has read about, Shahrukh, Hrithik, Darryl Hair, the rude lady she met at the bus stop yesterday, a courier man who she is waiting for…etc.. (Basically anyone who is present in our subconscious mind and we are mentally aware of...)
The basic connect for the average kid/family viewer is that everyone dreams. We all try and decipher our dreams. Some we hope come true. Some we don’t. Most we forget. And here is a girl whose dreams come true uncannily.
We sometimes wish we were like her, and sometimes we’re glad we are not her. But every day, we all wish to see how Sunaina tackles her problem for the day and what kind of mess she makes out it…and yet manages to emerge victorious/battered but wiser.
SUNAINA – 10 EPISODIC SYNOPSES
1) DETENTION:-
Sunaina dreams of Mrs. Malpekar the Maths Teacher punishing her and Rohan in a garden full of popcorn with the school song playing in the backdrop.
Sunaina and her pals figure that this dream signifies some capital punishment which Mrs Malpekar is going to subject her and Rohan too. And its got a cellphone and lots of popcorn in it!
Because of this she spends the entire day trying to stay clear from Mrs Malpekar and Rohan, with help from her friends.
And when she realizes her dads cellphone is in her bag by mistake, she sees it as a bad omen and panics more!
In the end, thanks to the phone and popcorn, she does get caught and the dream sadly comes true but with a happy twist.
2) THE QUIZ SHOW
Sunaina dreams of Sohail in room wallpapered with question marks yelling repeatedly : Tanzania! Tanzania! Tanzania! Tanzania!!!....
As he yells lots of money notes are raining down on him and he is going ballistic yelling even as Rishabh sits in the corner weeping like Shahrukh Khan. A black cat crosses the frame and Sunaina wakes up!!... A half dream!!
When Sunaina discusses this with her pals they all try and figure out what it means, until Sohail comes to them excitedly and says he is going for a quiz show on TV today! The girls are thrilled! This is what the dream was about! Sohail will win the quiz show. And the key answer is Tanzania. And the prize? Sohail blushes and says 10 lakh rupees. The girls are thrilled! Sunaina has seen Sohail win! But why should Rishabh be sad about it?..And the black cat?... That must definitely be a bad omen. Stay away from black cats till you win this quiz.
To make this beautiful dream come true, Sohails mugs up all the questions which might have Tanzania as an answer. The same day, Sunaina’s moms friend leaves her black cat Imli with them for a day. Its all coming eerily close. Rishabh meanwhile is totally disconnected from all this as he has discovered some new video game and is cracking it.
Also the three girls now see their idiot pal as becoming a rich guy. So needlessly, they butter him up to be in his good books. Sohail is gloating under all this. Untill he goes to the quiz show and makes a fool of himself thanks to Sunaina’s advice. Giving the answer Tanzania to half of the questions asked to him! Sohail comes last!!! Out in first round.
Fuming and angry with Sunaina, he comes to her house to see Rishabh playing his video game on TV. Paused at a very critical record breaking moment. Sohail changes Channels where Shahrukh is asking a 2 crore question to a superbrain who goes blank. Sohail goes berserk because he knows the answer! Its Tanzania!! A two Crore Question!!!! As he goes excited, he trips over the game wire and Rishabhs saved game is lost! Two days of gameplaying gone!!!..Rishabh breaks down!... Sohail has answered a two crore question…And the black cat?...Poor thing…it really wasn’t a bad omen!
3 - THE ‘DREAM’ DINNER
Sunaina dreams that her Mother Geetika has become an evil witch and is tormenting her poor father at the dinner table making him eat blue coloured food. At some point, dad can take it no more and runs away with a mysterious orange haired woman who drops a helicopter ladder into the hallway. Dad escapes professing all his love to this new woman! The witchly mother yells in anger. But Dad is gone!
This one is very confusing for Sunaina and her pals. What they know for sure is that there is a problem to happen between her parents. More so led on by her mother. And at some point, some orange haired woman is going to come in and take advantage of the situation and Sunaina’s dad is going to be smitten by her.
Also to their horror, Sunaina’s dad introduces a new kind of TOFU BLEU (Blue Tofu) in his restaurant which he wants to sample at home.
Sunaina knows this is getting dangerous. She must do something to avoid this coming closer to her dream. And when Ms. Pramila Poddar, an old school friend of her dad drops in for dinner that night, Sunaina is shocked. Premila has orange hair.
The dinner dream now seems inevitable. Sunaina along with Sohail, Nina and Ritwika does all she can to foil the entire home dinner. In the bargain, the food is messed up, her mom loses the role and Premila walks out of the house angrily. Offended. Sunaina is grounded for all that she did. But is happy that she foiled the EVIL dream.
4- THE PARTNER
Sunaina dreams that her father cleaning dishes and serving as a waiter in his own restaurant! Being ordered around by this evil looking man who he keeps calling Sirji.
Sunaina is scared. Something wrong is going to happen to her father. All that he worked for. Will be put to rest by some evil man. And when she actually sees the man who her father introduces to the family as Anirudh Bakshi , a senior who he admired and hero worshipped in his catering college days, Sunaina knows trouble is around the corner..
Annirudh offers to get into a business tie up with Vijay Mathur and gives him a very tempting offer, which includes bringing his own Chinese restaurant into the kitty. A partnership!
Sunaina and her pals decide they have to thwart it. Coincentally, the same time, the staff of the restaurant falls ill. Sunaina and pals take advantage of this and dress up as waiters in disguise and invite Rocky for a meal and make life hell for him with their bad service and chase him away, but it all misfires!
All are happy in this episode which for once is a nice happy ending completely for everyone. Especially Sunaina.
5- ME TARZAN YOU JANE!
The best dream ever!...Rohan is dressed as Tarzan. Sunaina is Jane.
And he is swearing on his love when suddenly the ladder catches fire. Sunaina looks down and sees Nina and Ritwika dressed like cackling witches setting the ladder on fire chanting spells. Rohan falls but holds onto the balcony. Sunaina holds his hand.
Sunaina believes Rohan is going to propose to her! She is thrilled. But this is one dream she will not talk to her friends about. Because they are the evil witches who will try and separate them. Symbolic of what they were doing. So she will try and get as close to Rohan as possible to make it come true.
But without telling her girlfriends, Sunaina makes the mistake of telling Sohail who makes the mistake of telling Nina and Ritu. There is a sudden crack in the friendship of the three girls. And in their desperation that Sunu’s dream doesn’t come true, Ritu and Nina begin to woo Rohan even as Sunaina does all she can to woo him.
Eventually it all leads to a madcap Tarzan-Jane school play where Sunaina ends up playing the Chimp instead of Jane!...But..the twists continue!
6- THE BURGLAR
Sunaina is home alone at night. And this horribly dangerous looking man breaks into the house with a gun. He is a burglar. And he ties her up and then proceeds to break things in her house for no reason.. Not before running off with something in his red bag. Throughout the dream, Rishabh sits not involved playing games on the TV.
Rishabh playing a game is nothing new. No fear. But whats scary and surefire is a man who will break into the house that night. She must do something!!!!
Sunaina tells her pals about this. They are worried. To make things worse, her parents go out for a late night party that night. Sunaina tries to dissuade them but they scold her.She is a big girl. Don’t be scared and take care of Rishabh! RIshabh is happy to be home. He can play games till late he thinks.
Sunaina is worried. Its all leading to the dream. When her parents leave, she calls her pals over. It becomes a home alone kind of experience with all three pals and her rigging up the house against a burglar. And at the strike of 10.30, a burglar actually breaks in. The four pals do everything to nab him but in the process end up bungling things and breaking all the things themselves (Which Sunaina saw the burglar break in her dream!!)…
How they nab him funnily is the rest of this episode.
7- THE SURPRISE TEST
One Sunday morning, Sunaina dreams that she and her friends are struggling under the burden of GIANT Mathematical symbols and falling and crushing under their weight even as Mrs Malpekar breezes past them with Swagatika on a cycle. Swagatika holds a banner reading : MONDAY!!! And sings a love song.
Sunaina seems to figure this one out easily. A maths test. Surprise maths test. On Monday! (That’s tomorrow now)… By Mrs Malpekar. She and her pals will do badly and struggle and the know all Swagatika will do well. Not if I have it my way!!! She goes about telling her friends about this premonition of hers.
This revelation throws the whole Sunday of Sunaina and pals in the air. They were planning on going to a party that afternoon. Apparently Rohan was supposed to go there too. But Sunaina dissuades them all and they all end up spending the entire day studying Maths. Even as finally, Sohail cant take it anymore and goes off to the party. The next day, the kids are shocked to learn that Rohan and Swagatika hit it off in the party and are almost like a couple now. Nina and Ritu want to kill Sunaina for this!!... This exam better happen!
But when it doesn’t, it causes a rift between the pals…But..there is a twist!!
8- MEET THE PARENTS
Sunaina dreams of her mother canceling her Manali holiday even as a woman in a saree writes : I will not miss MTA!... on the board behind!
Sunaina is worried that this is a dream where her mom will get annoyed and cancel her vacation camp to Manali. To make matters worse Geetu is in a bad mood with Sunaina.
And when Mrs Malpekar pulls Sunaina up in class, Sunaina is foxed and has been asked to call her parents. She now knows for sure that if her mom comes to know about this, her dream will come true!!
Meanwhile Sameer is beating Rishabh up in school and Geetu decides to complain against this to the teacher.
Sunaina finally comes up with a solution when she comes disguised as her mom to the Principal, which causes more chaos when her own mom turns up!!!
9- THE BARBER-IAN!
Sunaina dreams of a woman with crazily colored hair yelling at her and someone trying to snip her with a pair of giant scissors.
Sunaina deciphers that this spells bad luck for her. Especially being around a barber. And when her mom asks her to take Rishabh to the local beauty parlour for a haircut, Sunaina panics.
She passes the job onto Sohail who ends up knocking the hairdresser out!
Sunaina is called to fire fight but ends up in a situation where she has to play a hairdresser to the same lady in her dreams!
The rest is a ‘hair’ raising funny tale of Sunaina at her first attempt at being a beautician! With disastrously comic results!
10- THE LIBRARY BOOK!
Sunaina dreams of spoiling a book taken from a librarian Mrs Kadke who is extremely strict and cancels her library membership!!!
Sunaina is in no position to lose her membership as this is the only book library in town. So she does all she can to protect the book she has borrowed.
But in her pretext to protect the book (With help from her pals), the book gets damaged.
Sunaina is now sure her membership will be revoked.
So she and her pals come up with a madcap plan where Sohail dresses up like an old book writer who has come to the library for a lecture, and thus distract Kadke.
But the whole plan backfires and Sohails cover is blown! Will Sunaina be caught and will her membership be cancelled? That’s the finale of this by the book story! |
