The Alchemy of Desire

TRIBHUVAN MISHRA CA TOPPER ★ ★ ★ ■ Director: Puneet Krishna, Amrit Raj Gupta Cast: Manav Kaul, Tillotama Shome, Naina Sareen, Shubhrajyoti Barat, Shweta Basu Prasad, Sumit Gulati, Yamini Dass, Faisal Malik, Ashok Pathak, Amarjeet Singh, Sunil Saraswat

IT LOOKS as if ‘ Jamuna Paar’ is still the hot new destination for web series creators and writers. Wait, let me dial back: it’s not exactly new because Pataal Lok got there first, opening up the floodgates, but it is still clearly an irresistible setting for a cocktail of crime, quirk, corruption, and colourful characters.

The biggest differentiator in this series about a chartered accountant who lives and works in Noida, is not just that he is an honest sarkaari babu ( what’s that) but that he has a god- given talent for making women very, very happy. And then one not- so- fine day, his humdrum life, which mainly consists of a cake- baking wife and two nice kids, and keeping a greedy superior at bay, is thrown into disarray. A whole new world opens up, plunging him into a sea of land- and- bribegrabbing sharks, halwais who offer a sweetsavoury menu of kidnapping and killing, demure housewives with a thing for kattas, and a mother- in- law from hell ( Yamini Dass). As well as a side hustle which works on the very fine principle: give women what they want, and they will give you what you want.

Collect your jaw from the floor, good folks, because this is an honest- to- goodness attempt at creating a piece of fiction which privileges female sexual desire. Yes, there was Bollywood’s B. A. Pass, but that was grimy. This one is elevated by its terrific ensemble cast, and an inversion of shame. Ladies who would once have been labelled as brazen hussies fetch up in large numbers, happily flipping the standard transaction around: they are not putting out, no sir; they are in the market for the services of a purush veshya.

That’s a clunky word, but there’s nothing at all clunky about Manav Kaul, who plays the multi- tasker Tribhuvan Mishra — CA topper, whizz at pleasing his dutiful dharmpatni Ashoklata ( Naina Sareen), making sure his bachcha logs become English medium, trying to impress his shifty brother- in- law ( Sumit Gulati) and bhabhi ( Shweta Basu Prasad) acing her role of a housewife ( whose limpid smile hides a razor sharp brain), and all those lusty ladies pinging non- stop, demanding his time and attention. His initial awkwardness at the things he has to do to grow his ‘ business’, rolls over into a smoothness which never feels fake. Threesomes, leather, whips, other permutations: our topper’s got it all.

Kaul, whose brand of wholesome desi sexiness has only been touched upon briefly ( remember the sizzle Vidya Balan and he had got up to in Tumhari Sulu?), gets the full 50 shades play here, as a basically decent man who uses empathy among his other considerable skills ( evident from the sounds and sights emanating from heavy- breathing collages) to make the ladies swoon. As a happy customer puts it, ‘ tum sirf sukh nahin, khushi detey ho’.

If only CA Topper had stuck to this USP, which believes that adults are not only grown up enough to do the deed and derive pleasure from it, but also that women have the right to be pleasured, and actively seek it. But no, out comes the usual array of pottymouthed crooks who can’t come up with a sentence without aforesaid mentions of mothers and sisters and other body parts. After a point, we know that there will be no stopping this shower through the entire length of the series, and it is long ( nine, almost all one hour long except one which was 45 minutes). After a while, I zoned out. When even a minor character, a pathologist probing bodies who have bled profusely through knife- gashes made by a major character, is forced into one of these expressions, then you know that the writers are fresh out of ideas. That, and the imperative to keep such long episodes filled makes tiring repetition and annoying contrivances — of situation and characters — the only way out. How long can you stretch a maar- dhhaad set- piece in a public loo, or a climactic shoot- out which goes on and on?

Pity, because this one does seem to have some enjoyable characters we are invited to spend the best part of nine hours with: Raja Bhaiyya ( Shubhrajyoti Barat) the Bhujiya King of Noida whose mithai- ki- dukaan is staffed by some seriously scruffy individuals — chief factotum Dhencha ( Ashok Pathak), and his best pal Lappu ( Amarjeet Singh) — who share a long- kept secret doubling up as sidekicks, and said Bhujiya King’s biwi Bindi ( Tillotama Shome) whose craving for love forces her down a dubious path. A couple of cops, one corpulent ( Faisal Malik), the other slim ( Sunil Saraswat), also come and go, as does a muscle- bound gym trainer.

Part of my continued interest in the series, despite its flaws, stems from the fact that one can read CA Topper as a story of deep loneliness and thwarted love and ambition, which touches a chord in a few places, even as in the other bits, it becomes too underlined and obvious ( a past connection between two guys who do bad things but leave you wondering where they would have ended up had things been different, is a case in point). In the places it does well, it does really well, and that includes impactful acts from Naina Sareen, Tillotama Shome, and Shubhrajyoti Barat. But then again, it comes right back to that problem of those poor putupon mothers and sisters. And for a series which wants to put women on top, and upend the men, a final flourish doesn't carry as much of a punch as it should have.

How a bout di t ch i ng t hos e ‘ t hakeyhuey’ i nvectives? Or maybe j ust toning them down? We got it, the first time round. And how about, maybe, Gurugram? I don’t think Noida via Dadri and Atta Market ( all fa i t hfully mentione d i n t he s eri es) can handle more.