No Longer Fresh:
Last year’s Taaza Khabar was the acting debut of Youtube comedy star Bhuvan Bam, as Vasant ‘Vasya’ Gawde, attendant in a public toilet, who is granted a strange boon.
The idea (with some help from Echelon Conspiracy) was interesting, though the plot moved on a predictable track. As a reward for his kindness towards her, an old women blesses him with prescience, and right away, through his phone he learns of events before they occur, through a taaza khabar app, accessible only to him. Till then, Vasya lived an impoverished but content life with his parents (Atisha Naik-Vijay Nikam) and friends Peter (Prathamesh Parab), and Mehboob (Deven Bhojani), who runs a bakery and has a maths wiz daughter Shaziya (Nitya Mathur).
Vasant is in love with Madhu (Shriya Pilgaonkar), who works in Reshma’s (Shilpa Shukla) brothel and dreams of being a fashion designer.
When he understands the power his phone holds, he uses it to make money by betting on cricket matches. It also turns his head to the point that he starts thinking he is god. It’s time for comeuppance and it comes with a brush with gangsters and violence.
If the first season was loud and humorless, the second season, also directed by Himank Gaur, written Aziz, Hussain and Abbas Dalal, does not come up with enough material to stretch over another six episodes.
Vasya’s idea to scam a gangster backfired on him, and Yusuf (Javed Jaaferi) went after him like a bloodthirsty shark. Vasya faked his death and feared he lost his ‘vardaan’. Too soon into the second season, Vasya resurfaces and gets the boon back– with an added feature on the app. He can’t shake off Yusuf, who wants not just his lost money, but many more crores as his political fund. To keep Vasya in line he takes his parents hostage.
A large part of the show is taken up by Vasya and his loyal buddies trying to raise the 1000 crores Yusuf demands; that includes selling whale vomit (used in perfumes), kidnapping, a blackmail attempt and a trawl through the Deonar garbage dump.
The same bunch of people, doing the same things does not make for a satisfying sequel; the added subplots are hastily tacked on, and make no difference to the flow of the series. The prescience idea was milked for all it was worth in the first season, nothing much is added in the new season.
The actors struggle to work with the flimsy material, so tend to overact. Bhuvan Bam had proved his competence as an actor in the first season; here he gets to display one harried expression and a scruffy appearance. Shriya Pilgaonkar and Jaaved Jaaferi gamely do their bit and are defeated by the lack of substance.
(This piece first appeared in rediff.com)
