The title Karmma Calling is catchier than the American original Revenge; the melodrama created by Mike Kelley ran for four seasons from 2011-2015, and had enough plot stuffing left over to barbeque some more episodes. Because that’s what the show is, the screen version of junk food.
Adapted for India and directed by Ruchi Narain, the show will fit quite comfortably into the viewing schedules of the viewers it targets, their tastes already tainted by the cat-fighting domestic dramas produced by Ektaa Kapoor in the heyday of satellite television. The garishly dressed, over made-up women shooting daggers at each other is something Indian streaming channels were missing, and with that maybe the afternoon soap opera audience of women. Karmma Calling is not great television, but it somewhat counters the macho violence that has taken over OTT.
The makers of the original give credit to Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 novel The Count of Monte Cristo, perhaps to give themselves a dash of class, which the show doesn’t possess. The Indian adaptation could be accused of many flaws, but pretentiousness won’t be on the list. It practically revels in its lowbrow-ness.
In place of the Hamptons, where wealthy Americans cavort, Karmaa Calling is set in Alibaug, a hitherto lowbrow beach village just being discovered by the rich and famous, which does not quite have the same ring of sophistication, but it will have to do. And the Queen of Alibaug is Indrani Kothari (Raveena Tandon), who is annoyed to find that the mansion next door has been rented by a young woman, who does not belong to any clan in her social circle.
Karma Talwar (Namrata Sheth) with her wardrobe of cut-away bodycon dresses and metallic strapless blouses has arrived with the agenda of revenge, a box of memorabilia and a photo with faces she crosses out when she is done with them. Years ago, when she was a kid, Kaushal Kothari (Gaurav Sharma) and his cohorts had sent her father Satyajeet (Rohit Roy) to jail for a crime he did not commit. Karma—real name Ambika—was dumped in a juvenile home and traumatized by the warden’s cruelty.
She survives the ordeal, discovers her father was innocent, and with the help of a tech millionaire, Zane Khan (a delightfully campy Viraf Patel), who owed Satyajeet his start in life, embarks on her avenging spree. It helps to have a computer wiz like Zane on her side, because the revenge involves a lot of spycams, hacking and interpolation into public presentations. It is also convenient to have Indrani’s social secretary Yana (Amy Aela) as a friend, so that Karma can sashay into the endless parties, charity galas and other events the Kothari’s organize for Alibaug aristocracy. She always enters at the right time to do maximum damage while wearing an innocent expression. She quickly catches the eye of young and idle Ahaan Kothari (Varun Sood), as his mother grinds her teeth in frustration. It gets worse when her rebellious daughter Mira (Devangshi Sen) hangs out with Dash (Piyush Khati), owner of the local fish shack and bar. His brooding older brother Vedant (Rachit Singh) was Karma’s best friend when they were kids, and still pines for her. So, there’s a hot dudes love triangle brewing nicely in the background, with Ahaan’s college buddy and hanger on Krish (Masi Wali) trying to play spoilsport, because he has a man crush on Ahaan.
The dominos of the Kotharis’ tribe fall one by one, the first ones to go are Kaushal’s lady friend Dolly (Waluscha De Souza), their financial planner (Mohan Kapoor), a rising politician contact (Shataf Figar) and psychic guru (Alpana Buch) with more to come, because the seven-part series (on Disney+Hotstar) that begins with a murder on the beach, leaves many threads dangling for the seasons to follow.
At the top of the heap of actors with the biggest roles in this corny and convoluted revenge plot are Raveena Tandon and Namrata Sheth, who must have realized right away that they are meant to be fashion plates first, so don’t move their facial muscles much, except to side-eye each other. If the Balaji K-soaps of the past generated a trend in gaudy saris and heavy jewellery, this one might have frills, flounces, sheer blouses and power suits feminized with feathers, belts and killer stilettos flooding the market. Property prices in Alibaug might fluctuate too, depending on how the show goes down. It warns (in Purva Naresh’s flowery dialogue): be more afraid of karma than of god, because god might forgive, karma never does. Is it a coincidence that the name of the show starts with K?
(This piece first appeared in scroll.in)
