Psycho Out:
A magpie is a noisy bird attracted to shiny objects but in police parlance, a prison informer who spies on his cellmates for the cops is given that name. (There is no equivalent for Indian cops, because a thrashing gets a confession most of the time.) The Israeli thriller Magpie, now adapted into a Hindi web series Kankhajura (on SonyLiv), is about such a man. He is innocent and meek in appearance, but his handler describes him as “dangerous.”
Ashu (Roshan Joseph Mathew), convicted for murder, comes out of jail earlier than expected due to his informing gigs for Inspector Leena Naik (Heeba Shah). He had been left to rot in prison by his brother Max (Mohit Raina), who never even visited him. When he is released, Max picks up Ashu, and takes him to his stylish Goan villa, where he lives with his wife, Naina (Sara Jane Dias) and daughter Ira (Kurangi Vijayshree Nagraj). In the 14 years that Ashu spent behind bars, Max has become a real estate tycoon and on the verge of starting a major project of high-end villas, provided he can get the existing residents to leave. Max is friendly enough towards his brother, but does not want him anywhere near his home or business, after the initial welcome.
It is not immediately clear how much Ashu resents Max, but under the guise of helping him, he quietly starts digging into his foundation. Ashu looks harmless, but has the gift of manipulating people’s emotions so insidiously, that they never know what hit them. That was the danger Leena was referring to, and Ashu admits cheekily that he plays mind games “24/7.”
Max is having trouble with the female slumlord of Shastri Colony, the area he wants for his project— Deshmukh Bai (a perfectly cast Usha Nadkarni), her sons (Sachin Ashok Shinde, Sarur Gaikwad) and a disgruntled nephew (Pratap Madhavrao Phad) control the colony’s residents. Max’s childhood buddies and current aides, Pedro (Ninad Kamat) and Shardul (Mahesh Krishna Shetty) are unable to help find a way out and his politician uncle (Anant Jog) is breathing down his neck.
Ashu moves into that very colony, ostensibly to keep an eye on the people for Max. He reconnects with an old friend, who has undergone gender correction surgery and is now Amy (Trinetra Haldar), smoothly getting her abusive boyfriend out of the way.
As the stakes get higher, Ashu’s scheming gets more complicated. Directed by Chandan Arora, who has also adapted it with Sandeep Jain, the show portrays Ashu in a way that he is pathetic in one scene and devious in the next. Just like the other characters in the plot are constantly caught by surprise by his wiliness, the audience does not know whether to sympathise with Ashu’s past trauma or be gobsmacked by his next level cunning. Max is supposedly the successful brother, which also leaves him vulnerable to attack, more so when he is not even aware that is caught in a poisonous tarantula’s web, till it is too late to escape.
Ashu is a bit reminiscent of the part Shah Rukh Khan played in Baazigar, and Mathew correctly tempers the evil with a vulnerability that would have been touching if the consequences of his actions had been less destructive. Mohit Raina starts with a stylish confidence which turns to bafflement then desperation, and he carries off the role well.
The original series had a Season 2, and Kankhajura leaves scope to pick up Ashu from where he lands and see where he goes next–all the winning cards are in his hand, but there are also new obstacles on the way.
(This piece first appeared in scroll.in)
