Chumbak Review: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
Chumbak brings back the nostalgic charm of old-school neighbourhood sitcoms, delivering plenty of laughs through its eccentric ensemble cast, even when the jokes occasionally feel dated or uneven.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
Platform: Netflix
Genre: Comedy
Episodes: 8 (of 16)
Creator: Aatish Kapadia
Cast: Neena Gupta, Deven Bhojani, Manasi Parekh, Sumeet Vyas
Remember a time when a fight behind one front door was enough to keep an entire building talking, when a missing pet or a family argument instantly became everyone’s business? Netflix’s new comedy Chumbak looks back at that wonderfully nosy way of living and decides there is still plenty of joy left in it.
Created by Aatish Kapadia and produced by JD Majethia, the same minds behind cult classics like Sarabhai vs Sarabhai and Khichdi, Chumbak arrives with the confidence of a show that knows exactly how old-fashioned it is, and it works surprisingly well because of that.
Set in the fictional Chumbak Colony in Mumbai’s Chembur, the show follows five wildly eccentric families, the Merchants, the Kejriwals, the Khannas, the Oberois, and the Taraporewalas, whose lives are so tangled together that privacy barely exists.
At the center of it all are Kuku and Rajni Merchant, played by Deven Bhojani and Neena Gupta. Kuku is living with dementia and often forgets even his wife’s name, and after years of quietly managing his condition, Rajni finally decides she wants a divorce.
It is a surprisingly heavy premise for a comedy, but the show handles it with real tenderness. Gupta gives Rajni a restrained weariness that says more than any dramatic outburst could, while Bhojani finds the delicate balance of making Kuku funny without ever making his condition feel like a cruel punchline.
Naturally, in a colony like this, Rajni’s decision does not stay private for long. The Oberois, played by Arjun Bijlani and Helly Shah, are among the first to get pulled into the gossip. Shah, in particular, is a genuine standout as the gloriously naive Twinkle, delivering absurd lines with such deadpan sincerity that even the silliest jokes land perfectly.
The Khannas, played by Manasi Parekh and Sumeet Vyas, bring the comfortable friction of a long-married couple, with Parekh’s chatterbox energy playing beautifully against Vyas’s exhausted patience.
Sumeet Raghavan is a delight as Dharmendra Kejriwal, a comic performer who insists on staying in elaborate women’s costumes wherever he goes, while Delnaaz Irani steals several scenes as the wonderfully erratic Gulshan Taraporewala.
What makes Chumbak work despite its occasionally uneven humour is genuine warmth. These characters are nosy, dramatic, and often ridiculous, but the show clearly adores them rather than mocking them.
Whether it is an entire colony mourning a pet python’s death or everyone dropping everything to search for a missing child, Chumbak finds real comedy in how deeply intertwined these families have become, gossiping about each other one moment and showing up for each other the next.
The pacing does occasionally lose its grip, and some jokes feel pulled straight from an older television era without much updating.
But the ensemble cast keeps things afloat throughout, with Gupta and Bhojani providing genuine emotional weight, and the rest of the cast leaning fully into the colony’s chaos with clear enjoyment.
The show’s light, understated background score also wisely stays out of the way, letting the actors and their constant chatter carry each scene.
Chumbak is not reinventing the neighbourhood comedy, and it does not need to. Its ambitions are refreshingly modest, make you laugh, tug gently at your heart, and remind you of the strange comfort that comes from having people around who know far more about your life than they probably should. With eight more episodes still to come, there is plenty of colony drama left to look forward to.
If you’re curious what this cast reportedly earned, we’ve got a full breakdown of the Chumbak cast salary and series budget worth checking out. And if horror comedy is more your speed this week, our review of Ali Baba Aur 40 Bhoot covers a show that never quite decides what it wants to be.