The Family Man 3 dialogue writer Sumit Arora clarifies the 'Tiger' reference is not a dig at YRF spy universe

A still from ‘The Family Man 3’

Manoj Bajpayee's The Family Man could well be rechristened The Meme Man. Since the spy thriller's third season dropped on Prime Video last week, the internet is having a field day with memes inspired by Srikant Tiwari's witty comebacks. One of them is the sequence where Srikant's son asks him if he has a code name like "Tiger, Panther, or Lion". Straight-faced, he replies, "Beta main intelligence mein kaam karta hoon, circus mein nahin." Many viewers assumed it was a dig at the YRF spy universe.

A still from ‘Tiger Zinda Hai'

When we ask dialogue writer Sumit Arora, he clarifies, "The idea is to show that a spy is a middle-class guy. His kid could be growing up on the same kind of things as everybody else does. So, [he would imagine] that a spy has cool gadgets and a code name. We referred to the overall pop culture; it wasn't a direct reference to the spy universe."

Sumit Arora

Another scene where Srikant's son schools him on gender pronouns - as the former takes it in, part-baffled and part-exasperated - is being talked about. Gender pronouns are a fairly new concept. Arora says the pursuit was to have fun with it. "I relate with Srikant because I am a small-town boy, who is adjusting to the city culture. When Srikant is [relieved] that these gender pronouns are not being used in Hindi, that's how I would react."

But such dialogues also run the risk of offending viewers, who might feel the writing is mocking their preferences. "Humour will offend somebody or the other. Suman [Kumar] wrote it in the screenplay, and I added my own humour. We'll take the blame if somebody is offended."