Pyaarnama

A Rom-Com travel drama

SWA Reference Number

113100301876

LOGLINE

A meekly charming chef, Romil, is compelled to fit his entire cafe into the RV (Caravan) of a life-affirming travel influencer, Tarasha, he just met; two polar opposites cramped up in a tight space on the road for who knows how long - it is the recipe for crazy.

A note from Narrator

I am the RV that talks, but I can only talk to you & the audience. Cruelly, I can’t talk to the people inside me, wow that was not at all weird. By the people inside me I mean quite obviously the people who drive me, the people who own me, which in this case was my best friend - Tarasha and her new travel partner Romil.

But you tell me, have you ever wondered what it feels like to upend your entire life and live as an on-roader, marauding from destination to destination, meeting new people, hearing new stories, kicking all your worries into the dirt? Before you make up your mind, meet your heroes!”

THE STORY

"Pyaarnama" is a heartwarming romantic comedy that follows the journey of Romil and Tarasha, two individuals in their 20's with very different personalities. Romil owns a small cafe in the charming city of Udaipur, while Tarasha is a famous influencer and has been living a life on the road in her trusty RV. The story begins with Tarasha and her beloved RV, After a heated argument with her travel partner, Tarasha is left to continue her journey alone. Simultaneously, Romil, a resourceful chef and the owner of a struggling cafe named Pyarnaama, receives foreclosure papers from Bank, sealing the fate of his beloved establishment. It's a turning point for both Tarasha and Romil as they find themselves at a crossroads in their lives. After getting drunk, they decide to merge Romil's cafe into Tarasha's RV, embarking on a journey to the glorious Rannotsav, Gujrat.

Their journey takes an unexpected turn when they meet Ramya, 35, a marketing executive from an RV company looking to enter the Indian market. Ramya sees potential in Tarasha and Romil, and she hatches a plan that could fast-track her career. Ramya forms a bond with the couple, getting to know them on a more personal level. She extends an offer for them to become ambassadors for the new luxury RV and promote it in their videos. While Romil is elated at the opportunity, as it promises financial relief, Tarasha is apprehensive about leaving behind her beloved RV. Romil eventually persuades her, and they part ways with their old RV (Our narrator of the story as well). It is hard for Tarasha to part her ways with the RV while Romil becomes a good friend to Ramya. Will their expectations leads to a disaster which can be beyond repair or will their companionship sow a seed of becoming India's first RV community ?

Our Characters

Raw, emotional, impulsive i.e. Tarasha. An architect by education and a traveller by profession, a world citizen by heart. Raised by a single father after her mother who is a famous spiritual leader now by the name 'Jagat Maa' - abandoned them early on, she still nurses the wounds of abandonment but keeps it pretty wrapped up. The outgoing extrovertedness which was first a trauma response has now become her personality. She is a person that is delighted in the absolute tiniest of things and is not waiting for a supreme vision to come true for her to be joyful.

Romil: Quite opposite. An ambitious, charming, hardworker who believes in a big payoff somewhere down the line that will solve all his problems and change his life for good. He has grown up in a financially struggling family who produces dairy. Since childhood he is used to cook food while his mother was occupied managing the dairy business. He is not satisfied with little victories in life and believes achieving something substantial is the only way to prove his worth. He has drawn quite a web of lies for his family about his career. Unknown to them he runs a cafe in Udaipur, while they believe he is an honest engineer. Always anxious & stressed out about where his life is going, he deals with it by being self effacing. He is an ambivert and quite funny while being that.

TARASHA

ROMIL

Ramya : As straight as an arrow that hasn’t hit its bull’s eye yet. All her life she has lived by the book, doing the right thing, doing what was expected of her, respecting her family and their wishes, marrying into a home- to a person of their choice. Yet after all of this her life is not the textbook fairy tale as one would expect. Her husband left her after he found out that she couldn’t have kids, leaving her a broken woman. Now she over compensates in her work, her trauma channeled into her drive of ambition. She has gotten cold with time but there is a warm mother’s heart beneath all of it.

Click here to see the list of secondary characters

RAMYA

STORY

1

COMING TOGETHER

The show opens in Udaipur with the RV and a travel influencer Tarasha in focus. Tarasha’s travel partner after a long brewing fight abandons her for the rest of the trip, Tarasha is now alone. Meanwhile Romil, the savvy chef and owner of the cafe Pyaarnama, gets the final nail in the coffin in the form of foreclosure papers. Romil’s ‘Pyarnaama’ needs a new destination to call home and Tarasha needs a new travel partner; a rom-com travel drama ensues.

2

EMBARKING ON A JOURNEY

After merging Romil’s cafe ‘Pyaarnama’ into Tarasha’s RV which she named ‘Udan Choo’, the duo set sail on the course to the glorious Rannotsav in Gujarat. In the middle of their journey, they run into a beatdown and haggard hippie by the name of Leon. They take him inside, only to find out he was robbed by a gang of local goons. Tarasha impulsively forms a plan to track them down & retrieve Leon’s belongings, putting everyone in danger. Later, Leon pays them back by taking them to a waterfall nearby & then goes off with the RV unannounced. Tarasha gets panic.

3

THE FESTIVAL OF KUTCH

After bringing their RV back in what was apparently a communication mix up by Leon, the duo resume their journey and finally reach the Rann of Kutch. The first day of the Pyaarnama cafe is a disaster, full of chaos. As they scrape by the first day Tarasha is preoccupied by the poster of Jagat Maa, a rising spiritual preacher she saw in the city. Unknown to Romil, she is Tarasha’s mother who abandoned her in childhood.

RAMYA'S ENTRY

The daily chores of the RV lifestyle have taken a backseat in her mind which leads to a big argument between the couple. Romil tries to manage the RV and Pyaarnama by himself. One fine morning a brand new luxury RV is parked at the festival. Tarasha goes to visit the new RV, blown away by its features and the interiors of that luxurious RV. Later they meet Ramya, the keeper of the new RV & the marketing executive of a multi national RV company trying to enter into the Indian market. Seeing the couple and Tarasha’s famous vlog’s around RV lifestyle, Ramya gets an idea, one that could fast track her career.

4

THE DEAL

Ramya bonds with the couple and gets to know more about them. Following that she offers them a deal in which they have to live in the new luxury RV for four months as a part of the company's new influencer marketing strategy. While Romil is elated to hear the offer for it means a much needed financial break but Tarasha is skeptical about leaving her beloved RV. Romil tries to convince her by telling her about his family history. Tarasha develops a soft heart towards Romil. They agree to the deal and part ways with their old RV i.e the narrator of our story. Tarasha is sad to leave her RV for the time being as Ramya put that RV into her company's parking.

5

LIFE IN THE LUXURIOUS RV

The couple adjusts to the new RV while they are heading towards Goa. But their vlogs start losing numbers and the social media traffic starts dwindling down prompting Ramya to take charge and insist on scripting the vlogs much to Tarasha’s chagrin. Seeing Romil’s and Ramya’s closeness, jealousy gets instilled in Tarasha. With much of Ramya's creative efforts the traffic on the vlogs starts rebounding. Tarasha get's to know about Ramya's adoption decision and some details about her past. Romil and Tarasha come close in the process as well. After all this time, they share a night of physical intimacy.

6

FACE OFF WITH JAGAT MAA

Tarasha wakes up the next day feeling giddy because of last night’s intimate experience, but it soon evaporates as Romil doesn’t reciprocate. Romil doesn't want to get distracted. Things are now awkward as they get ready to go to an official dinner celebrating the duo as the company’s new ambassadors. Tarasha feels neglected by Ramya in front of all the stakeholders and storms out of the function only to land in another event happening in an adjacent auditorium where Jagat Maa is a chief guest. Fuming she rushes in and confronts rather disrespects Jagat Maa in full view of the public.

7

IT ALL BURNS DOWN

The following morning Romil receives a phone call from her sister informing him about his father’s ill health, Romil decides to visit them soon. Here, Ramya invites them to inform them that the adoption process is finally going through. She has been waiting a long time to adopt a child and now it is finally happening. As they return they receive a corporate email about Tarasha’s outburst at Jagat Maa. It is a PR debacle which needs to be addressed with an outright apology. Tarasha straight up refuses, causing another high octane fight between the duo. Romil storms out of the RV as Tarasha starts to throw things around. The luxury RV catches fire in the chaos and as Tarasha escapes barely flames engulf the vehicle. All seems to be lost.

8

SEASON 1

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EP.

The World

UDAIPUR, RAJASTHAN

As the series begins, we experience a culturally rich town of Udaipur, Rajasthan. It is a riveting, enthralling city. Yet there is a certain tranquility in it. It is a state of apt balance. The vibrant palette and warm tones injectsa the audience with a sense of an exciting new beginning. Here on, the look and feel of the whole series is coherent to our protagonist’s psyches.

RANN OF KUTCH, GUJRAT

As we get on the road, we move along the outskirts of major habitations. There's an exotic rhythm to the landscapes, which grows with time. The next destination we reach is the charmingly exotic Rann of Kutch. The Rannotsav in all its glory greets us with scores of colors & people, each carrying their own unique vibration. As Tarasha & Romil bask in the sanguine glory of the magnificent full moon in the white sand we truly begin to peel back layers of the narrative.

GOA, MAHARASHTRA

Moving on from Rannotsav our travel birds follow a southwards trail to the pious land of Goa where the narrative grips the steering wheel with white knuckles as everything rolls downhill. Between enjoying the beautiful beaches of Goa and dealing with the tribulations that come as consequences of their choices, Tarasha & Romil find themselves facing down the barrel of our’s season climax.

The world of Pyaarnama is as lucid & dynamic as the journey the characters are on. Populated with characters that represent all that is crazy, absurd, endearing about life. The world in a way acts as a coincidental cupid that catalyzes the two character’s emotional journeys and propels them towards realizations and eventual resolutions.

RV

Yet a major part of Tarasha & Romil’s environment is their RV- the narrator of the story, until they part in the middle of the narrative. Being cramped up in a congested space, the duo will have to learn to adjust with each other; learning how to store water in the RV, how to sleep, how to take a dump and take care of garbage — even though our characters struggle in settling with it at times. It is the fluid liminal space where newness is born. This is the thing that makes it fresh.

#RVLife

MOOD BOARD

Director's note

I believe that once in a lifetime, every human has thought of leaving the usual life and living an alternative way of life. A life that makes you feel good while you imagine the flashes of it. It is the precise imagination of every human, including myself, that I want to touch upon. My central character(s) symbolises the very hope and imagination of living a life beyond usual, but things stir down as soon as reality strikes. This is what life is, right? No. We have to stand up and turn that imagination into reality. That’s what creates a good story and, at last, a good life.

First of all, I have full conviction about the idea of an RV show. It’s home to many people, and I want to tell the story, struggles, and lifestyles of those many people. Though there are RV communities across European and American societies, in India there are people, some of whom are famous vloggers, who live full-time in RVs as well. Their lives are full of adventures and halts, but in the end, they reach their destination with a heartfelt smile. So yes! I’m full on for this ride.

I deeply connected with the characters. Romil - who admires some of the world’s great chefs and wants to become one of them, but now he is stuck managing his own little cafe. He never had the exposure or money to get enrolled in a professional chef course. He started a very small cafe with the help of a friend’s money, then expanded that cafe quickly by getting a loan from the bank. It’s pretty late when he realised that he is supposed to be a chef and not a cafe owner or manager because, till now, he is already in debt. While Tarasha is someone who doesn’t believe in a goal or purpose, she is just living life as it is. Her anger towards her mother is a sort of parenthood trauma, one of the subjects that I want to explore because our generation seems to take this seriously and is very much affected by it.

Lastly, I don’t want to create ‘Pyaarnama’ as just another Rom’Com passing because, despite the genre, I can see, or rather imagine, an inspiring tale of two individuals who need to break free in order to become the best versions of themselves. That's exactly what each one of us need.