Paresh Rawal with wife Swaroop Sampat; (top) the lead actress Nazneen Patel. Pictures by Sudeshna Banerjee

When Paresh Rawal lends his name to a TV production, one expects a laugh riot. But Main Aisi Kyun Hoon…, that debuted this month on Sahara One, is a “dramedy”, to use a term coined by Hemal Thakkar, coproducer of the show.

At the serial’s launch in Mumbai, Rawal, who looked at least 10 kilos thinner, promised this much: “Joke maarne ke liye hum koi character ko maar nahin denge. The humour will not be forced.” As in case of the earlier productions of his company Playtime Creations, Rawal is not acting in the show. Neither is his wife, comedy specialist of yesteryear Swaroop Sampat, who made a brief appearance off-stage. It is Nazneen Patel, seen in Kahiin Kissi Roz, Kkehna Hai Kuch Mujhko, Pancham and Bhabi, who will be playing the lead — Sanjana Pushpa Patil.

The story is of a middle-class Maharashtrian family, living in Shivaji Park, Mumbai. A career girl, Sanjana has lost her love but the serial shows how she carries herself. “The girl does not mope thinking mere saath aisa kyun hua but main aisi kyun hoon. She often stays lost in day dreams as she makes her way through professional life as a journalist and a home with a worried mother because Sanjana is unmarried at 26,” said Kalyan Sundaram, the channel’s programming head.

Nazneen had her own reasons to be happy. “Leading ladies on television are shown to be devi like. They cry to get people’s sympathy. But this character moves on with life,” she said. “All hoardings of TV serials carry long faces. Only I smile,” she added, laughing.

Market trends may be showing how regressive saas-bahu fare works on television. But the channel is undaunted. “Irrespective of what research shows, we are going ahead with the show. This will be a show in the Hrishikesh Mukherjee style,” said Sundaram.

Also present at the launch were Khalid Siddique, playing Siddharth, her childhood beau, a bubbly Anokhi Srivastava who portrays Anuradha, Sanjana’s boss at the newspaper who has married Siddharth, and Dilip Joshi, who is Chandu Mama, an advocate who never goes to court.

The show is being aired Monday to Thursday, at 8.30pm on Sahara One.