Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre : Drama
Year : 2022
Season: 1 Episodes: 5
Director : Rahul Pandey, Satish Nair
Cast : Vaibhav Tatwawadi, Akash Makhija, Alka Amin, Ishita Ganguly
Kid rating : PG
This is a series on SonyLiv and is about a young man who returns home to his village after having lived in the city all his life. Nirmal Pathak (Vaibhav Tatwawadi) is a city-bred writer coming back to the village to attend the wedding of his younger cousin Aatish (Akash Makhija). He gets a rousing welcome from Aatish and his friends and all the family members seem very happy to see him.
Nirmal hasn’t actually ever met these family-members in his life. He is very curious to meet his biological mother (Alka Amin). She is a quite, diminutive woman and he understands that she misses his father very much. Nirmal keeps up the pretense that his father couldn’t be with them in the village because of pressing work issues, but the reality is something else entirely.
Initially it’s a little bit confusing for us as the viewers because Nirmal seems to have a mother back in the city and then he has his birth mother in the village – so the family dynamics seems a tad odd. Plus there’s this mysterious rift-causing event, that everyone seems to refer to, that Nirmal (and we) are unaware of. Slowly things become clearer and we get a better lay of the land.
As time passes and the wedding date comes closer, Nirmal gets to meet the other villagers, see village issues up close and become aware of the politics, bureaucracy and casteism that keeps the villagers mired in poverty and ignorance. He is appalled at the injustice of it all, and his views seem in direct conflict to those of cousin Aatish and his uncle, Aatish’s father.
This was a really interesting five episode series. Tatwawadi (who was in Lipstick Under My Burkha) carries his role with conviction. The storyline has nice twists and turns and there’s a lot of backstory to catch up on. The family dynamics, the big rift etc. is revealed to us little by little so it does keep our attention. In the end it is the classic, layered good versus evil tale and the first season just manages to get the fire started. Nirmal, the treasured and honored guest, must make up his mind to come out in opposition to cousin Aatish and uncle dearest and it is taking him a while to shed familial obligations.
Season 1 ends without a resolution, so there’s a second season coming. Should be an interesting one – hopefully we see Nirmal return to the village, less brash, and with more tact and common-sense, because he will need it.
Kidwise: Some violence.
