Bombay Begums

Great premise, powerful theme, appropriate setting, super star quotient, raised on a lavish scale - Bombay Begums has it all to its advantage. It's not a chic flick mind you, it's about four women with their own growth aspirations while balancing the family and personal turmoils. Their playground is a fictional Bank in Mumbai that is in dire needs of a profile uplift, which is the newly appointed CEO Rani's (Pooja Bhatt) primary challenge. But she faces massive headwinds - an uncooperative board led by an unnecessarily grumpy Rituraj who looks constipated all the time, a difficult Corporate Banking Head, Deepak (Manish Chaudhary) with his own professional objectives that are at crossroads with Rani, and lack of original ideas to steer the bank forward.

Adding to her troubles are her stepson who after a drunken night with a prostitute runs over the latter's son inadvertently, plunging both family and Rani's reputation into darkness and giving a free access to the sex worker Lily (Amruta Subhash) to the bank boardroom to blackmail Rani into overt submission and meeting her own aspiration to set up a factory that she hopes will restore her pride and a place in the society. The other two women in the scene are an impressive Shahana Goswami playing Fatima, the number two to Rani, fighting her own personal family battles, trying to live up to the challenge of her professional pursuit, and a tormented Plabita Borthakur (Ayesha) who has a myriad of issues to tackle at the bank and in her own personal life.

You get the whiff, right? Bombay Begums straddles numerous sociopolitical, personal, professional issues mired in financial crimes, exploitation, sexual violence, extramarital affairs, corporate politics, workplace sexual misconduct, fertility problems, etc., the list is endless. Hence the series goes all over the place trying to tie the subjects together into a singular executable affair - women's struggle for the rightful place in society keeping their dignity intact. The series spreads itself too thin, like all other Alankrita Shrivastava offerings of the past. Pooja Bhatt is superlative and poignant in several episodes. Shahana Goswami is restrained, lowboy yet powerful in execution. Amruta Subhash and Plabita Borthakur grate on the nerves oh so successfully and that too in brilliant partnership with each other. The men are at best WASTED!

If they are simply showing 5 lives of women without any disclaimer, then, it's fine. But how are these women portrayed as Begum? This is not empowerment. Except laxmi all characters seem hopeless, unwise and stupid.

Women don't need to act like irresponsible men to get empowered. Let's create shows where both men and women are expected to act wisely and responsibly. Just don't try to portray cheating, stupidity, taking drugs as empowerment. If men do it, it's wrong. If women do it, it's wrong.

Bombay Begums review :

Released on Netflix earlier this month, Bombay Begums got in to an ongoing controversy for its alleged drug abuse involving children as well as immoral relationships. Frankly, as a viewer, these things least bother me as long as the filmmaker has an entertaining story to tell. Something which can grip you till the end. Unfortunately, Alankrita Shrivastava's six episode web-series is over-stretched to extent that it exhausts itself within the first two to three episodes.

The plot revolves around a medium sized bank whose CEO Rani (Pooja Bhatt) is battling the internal politics along with her nagging menopause. She re-hires a fired fresher Ayesha (Plabita Borthakur) for a new CSR project which involves rehabilitation of a prostitute Lily (Amruta Subhash) who lives for her child's future. Fatima (Shahana Goswami) is finding it tough to balance the hectic worklife with her impending motherhood but nevertheless, takes the call to get promoted after Rani persuades her.

Next, the creepy male CEO aspirant (Manish Chaudhary, effective) lays his hands on unsuspecting Ayesha while Fatima falls for the charms of her firangi client and cheats on her hubby (Vivek Gomber). Meanwhile, Rani's step daughter Shai (Aadhya Anand) has a drug overdose at a friends party.

One interesting fact about Bombay Begums is that all its characters - big or small and male or female - have grey shades to them. No one is swanky clean; no one is disgustingly evil either. They are flawed persons vying for name and existence in this material world. Ayesha is shown a bisexual who is struggling with her preferences. Fatima loves her hubby but still gives in to the temptation of a torrid affair. Shai is a confused soul who speaks through her art and misses her dead mommy to point of living a fantasy.

Alankrita's characters are well etched but the screenplay is so overlong that you lose attention after the first three episodes. The sex scenes get repetitive. So does all that corporate world mumbo jumbo. A crisp four episode series would've made Bombay Begums infinitely better...and recommendable. As for the drug abuse bit, Madhur Bhandarkar's Page 3 (2005) had more shocking scenes than the one depicted here. That film won a National award while poor Begums is on verge of getting banned. Truly unnecessary!!

All said and seen, the series' biggest positive are the brilliant performances from the girl gang - all of them. Pooja Bhatt and Shahana Goswami are clear standouts and it feels great to see Pooja back in action after being relegated to a photograph in pappa Mahesh's Sadak 2 last year. Pooja Bhatt rocks. Unfortunately, Bombay Begums don't!!

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.

Major plus point to the show is all about acting. Lead cast has done a beautiful job. But downfall for the Netflix drama is lots of unwanted strings attached to main story line. Although show wanted to make a clear agenda of sexual harassment going in corporate world, it somehow deviates from it. Producers spoiled the impact of the show by trying to make it fit for the commercial cinema.

The characters i most hated was of the ayesha. She is like a leech. Who survive on others and take advantage of others. Most annoying. Overall series was slow n boring.