A couple of days back, an amusing, new promo titled ‘Don’t Be A Minimum Guy’ from the second season of ‘The Family Man’ was revealed by Amazon Prime Video. However, the promo did not get the attention it deserved owing to a controversy that the show got embroiled in, around the same time.
In what seems to be a collection of intriguing snippets from the show’s opening episode, the sub-one-minute promo shows the adorable ‘middle-class-guy—world-class-spy’ character of Manoj Bajpayee scrambling with his new, uneventful desk job. On top of that, his new boss constantly irritates him with his cheesy corporate one-liner ‘Don’t Be A Minimum Guy’.
Despite being wrapped in a humorous overtone, the promo, in fact, made us ponder on the cliched yet profound notion of “following your passion”. The intrinsic philosophy behind these words is extremely relevant in the case of the show’s protagonist – Srikant Tiwari.
Because when a dedicated, daredevil spy ends up doing an insipid desk job (even if it might be camouflage or for anything else), a line of work that does not match his unique calibre, it will only lead to frustrations, as rightly shown in the new promo.
A somewhat similar philosophy was beautifully explained in Rajkumar Hirani’s epic entertainer ‘3 Idiots’ (starring Aamir Khan, Madhavan and Sharman Joshi). The film conveyed an important message through its principal characters. Let us elaborate, how.
For instance, Farhan’s character (played by Madhavan) was shown to be passionate about wildlife photography and he had unwillingly joined an engineering college merely to fulfil his father’s wish. Consequently, he became one of the consistently lowest-scoring students and a subject of ridicule at his college.
On the contrary, Farhan’s friend Rancho’s character (played by Aamir Khan) was shown to be genuinely passionate about studying engineering and, as a result, he invariably gets through with flying colours at the same college. Rancho then advises Farhan to leave engineering and become a photographer instead, which he eventually does.
In a somewhat similar fashion, the ‘Don’t Be A Minimum Guy’ promo from ‘The Family Man’ Season 2 indirectly tells its viewers what Aamir Khan’s character (Rancho) had advised in ‘3 Idiots’ – that is, the idea of being in the profession that is actually your passion, otherwise it could lead to disastrous results.
And Srikant Tiwari in the role of a world-class spy is analogous to Rancho’s character in ‘3 Idiots’ (doing what he does best). Whereas, Srikant Tiwari in the role of a 9-5 corporate desk job is reminiscent of Farhan’s character unwillingly pursuing engineering.
In ‘The Family Man’ web series, Srikant Tiwari is an exceptionally skilled and talented spy but is not made for a regular 9-5 desk job. We can clearly see this in the new promo and even empathize with the character’s feeling of getting trapped.
The audience knows he is meant for greater things, greater challenges that we have already witnessed in the first season. We’ll hopefully see more of it when the second season arrives on the Amazon Prime Video streaming platform on June 4, 2021. Meanwhile, you can enjoy the amazing ‘Don’t Be A Minimum Guy’ promo here.
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