DABBA CARTEL
ON NETFLIX
I must confess, I started watching Dabba Cartel with a mix of curiosity and trepidation. The world of Mumbai's dabbawalas and tiffin delivery service are used to deliver drugs. If you have watched Breaking Bad, you will recognise the drug. Here it is called MDM and later in its green coloured version Mithai. (Remember the blue coloured Meth from Breaking Bad?)I found myself drawn into the complex web of characters and storylines. The show's leading old lady, mother in law Shiela(played with grand aplomb by an aged and sharp Shabana Azmi in a refreshingly different avtar), who has retired from a treacherous background, is forced to reveal her true colours to protect her innocent daughter in law from her over ambitious son and the mess she gets into to earn lots of money to fund his dreams.
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From unscrupulous pharma companies to blackmailing and terrorising drug peddlers
and dealers, the show sheds light on the dark underbelly of Mumbai's prosperous
exterior.
It is essentially a show of the 6 ladies tied down in a web of ego, greed
power, ambition, duty and survival.
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· It also highlights the ambitons of the kamwali bai, Mala,(played by an effervescent Nimisha Sajayan) taking on the black mailers and a dark world to meet her dreams of a high flying life for herself and her daughter. When her school going daughter says that the TV she bought was too big for their small room, she says she will take a bigger house.
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Mother in law Sheila is street smart and fiercely protective. When a
consignment of drugs are accidentally destroyed and the drug dealer demands
that they sell more drugs to recover his loss, she admits there is no way out.
It had to be done. At another point she admits to her daughter in law, adamant
to stick to routine life, that she was not born for the chula chowka stuff.
The daughter in law is Raji Jagtap (played with sweet innocence by Shalini
Pandey) . At a crisis point when the
consignment has to be stolen from her husband to save themselves, she defies
her mother in law saying she would not steal.
The house
broker Shahida
(played a bubbly Anjali Anand)is your everyday greedy agent who
has an attraction for the lady Police Officer Preeti looking for a big case to get her
promotion(played with the daring eagerness of an young lady in search of her
dreams by Sai Tamhankar).
Varuna (played by a dignified and
sad looking Jyotika ) is the ignored and side
tracked wife of Shankar Dasgupta(played by a sauve Jisshu Sengupta), the manipulative local boss of the unscrupulous
pharma company.
The investigation into the pharma company which causes all this trouble is doggedly pursued even in the threat of suspension by Arun Pathak, a close to retirement Drug Safety Officer (played with a mostly poker face by Gajraj Rao ) who has some interesting interactions with the young and daring lady police officer.
If I have any quibbles, it's that the
pacing can be a bit uneven at times. Some episodes feel a bit slow, while
others are breakneck in their intensity. But overall, "Dabba Cartel"
is a gripping and intense watch that's hard to look away from.
In short, if you're a fan of gritty,
intense drama, "Dabba Cartel" is a must-watch. Just be prepared for a
wild ride. .IMDB rating 7.1
