The seven-episode Netflix series oscillates between cool and chaos, menace and joy, never quite finding its tone
Shabana Azmi is the fiery queen of a girl group. They ply a trade of dubious repute. Her subordinates feel the heat of her gaze. She doesn’t tolerate fools. I’m talking, of course, about a film called Mandi, directed by the great Shyam Benegal and released in 1983. Its coolness remains unsurpassed, 42 years later.
Stars: Jayant Gadekar, Mansi Sehgal, Jyothika
Dabba Cartel, a new Netflix crime series with Azmi back at the helm, tries its best to be cool. Co-created by Shibani Akhtar, the series has a novel core: a home chef’s dabba (tiffin) delivery business turns into a dangerous drug operation. The pinball narrative unfolds over seven episodes. The characters are stereotypical, but, coming at you in large numbers, they maintain an intense pace, like actors on a revolving stage. It has the mark of an Excel production: ample efficiency, not much excellence.
I am convinced that an early draft of Dabba Cartel was called Ba, Bahu Aur Bandook. Retired criminal Sheila (Shabana Azmi) spies her daughter-in-law, Raji (Shalini Pandey), making an unexpected haul. She follows her to a shabby apartment where Raji, her business partner and housekeeper Mala (Nimisha Sajayan) and another accomplice, mid-level real estate broker Shahida (Anjali Anand), are being held at gunpoint. Sheila, unfazed, strikes a deal with the blackmailers: Raji will continue his underground “puriya” business. Except, instead of marijuana or herbs for sexual well-being, they will sell molly. “Drugs, drugs,” says a shocked Raji.
From this point on, the stakes only get higher. At the centre of the plot are two marriages in crisis that tie the threads together. Raji’s husband, pharmaceutical employee Hari (Bhupendra Jadawat), is desperate to secure a posting abroad. He is advised to petition a superior, Shankar (Jisshu Sengupta), who is busy covering up an opioid scandal. Shankar is emotionally estranged from his partner, Varuna (Jyotika), the owner of a struggling boutique company. This is a story of ignored wives, mothers and professionals demanding control of their lives, while the men suck up and squabble. The harsh, layered world is spiced with comic cheekiness – Nimisha Sajayan, as the constantly busy and explosive Mala, is especially a delight.
Verisimilitude is rarely a concern in shows like Dabba Cartel. A truly good crime show thrives on contrast: Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, for example, are all about the collision between run-of-the-mill New Mexico and the cartel lands looming across the border. Dabba Cartel plays by the rules of American television – “I enjoyed it, it was exciting, I felt like I was alive again,” Sheila confesses, practically quoting Walter White – but it forgets this crucial trick. Thane, a middle-class Maharashtra location, is certainly a fun setting for a female-led crime series. However, the humdrum world of Big Pharma, with its sterile offices and corruption scams, is rarely that fun to watch. Detours to Amritsar, Delhi and Pune don’t help. Even Gajraj Rao’s wig (he plays a drug enforcement agent) gets tiresome after a point.
I wish Dabba Cartel was as funny as 2022’s Darlings (also available on Netflix). Director Hitesh Bhatia shows some sensitivity for Mumbai: the incessant rains, the arrogant neighbours, a TV too big for the room. It is, in short, a city of facades: not just Sheila and Raji, even an established gangster uses a motor training school as a front. But the script is also vague and uninspiring in parts. “Bhowmick Bose” is a depressingly generic name for a Bengali whistleblower, and my heart bleeds for any newspaper that calls itself, in all seriousness, “The Front Page.”
Verisimilitude is rarely a concern in shows like Dabba Cartel. A truly good crime show thrives on contrast: in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, for example, it is the collision between ordinary New Mexico and the cartel lands looming across the border. Dabba Cartel follows the rules of American television – “I enjoyed it, it was exciting, I felt like I was alive again,” Sheila confesses, practically quoting Walter White – but it lacks this crucial trick. Thane, a middle-class place in Maharashtra, is certainly a fun setting for a series.
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