Don’t Mess With Mom:
The six-part series, Mai, begins with Sheel sweeping the house, washing and drying clothes, cooking, to establish that the woman (Sakshi Tanwar) is an ‘ordinary’ homemaker. As the series created by Atul Mongia (directed by him and Anshai Lal) progresses, she transforms into an extraordinary person, though outwardly, she looks the same—dressed in cotton saris paired with ugly walking shoes.
It is established soon that Sheel and her husband, Yash Chaudhary (Vivek Mushran), are treated like minions by his older brother—a doctor– and his wife, because they are wealthy. Sheel also works as a volunteer nurse as a home for the aged, and Yash repairs electronic gadgets, when he is not running the family’s medical store, which his brother thinks is a menial task.
Sheel witnesses her mute daughter, Supriya (Wamiqa Gabbi), knocked down by a truck and killed. She discovers that it might not have been an accident, and starts asking questions and following tenuous leads, trying to find out who ordered the hit on her daughter and why.
She learns that a local gangster, Jawahar Vyas (Prashant Narayanan), might be involved and as she interrogates him, he dies of a heart attack. One of his henchman, Prashant (Anant Vidhaat), unexpectedly comes to her aid, disposing off the body and deleting CCTV footage. He tries to warn her against digging any further, but she won’t let go.
Sheel lands right in the midst of scams, gang machinations, a special forces operation let by Farooque Siddiqui (Ankur Ratan), who turns out to be Surpriya’s secret boyfriend. There is also a missing crypto key, which the dead man’s ladyfriend, Neelam (Raima Sen—credited as Raima Dev Sharma), wants to recover at any cost.
Mai, set in Lucknow (that gives some sequences an unexpected visual sheen) begins well, with Sheel lying convincingly to obtain information. Later, it gets increasingly convoluted and strains credulity. Sheel just happens to be at the right place at the right time, always has a convincing lie flowing out effortlessly, and also surprising bursts of cruelty. The language gets coarser, the violence is pumped up and the novelty of a simple middle-class housewife seeking revenge is lost in the macho din.
Some of the digressions—like the Chaudhary family troubles—don’t add anything to the plot, but the sweet quasi-romance between Yash and a customer over their shared love of German, gives the otherwise passive character a fresh shade of colour. Prashant’s homosexuality is simply taken for granted and without comment. An ex-con (Seema Pahwa) just turns up to help Sheel.
Sakshi Tanwar’s lack of vanity is refreshing—she uses little or no make-up, wears drab clothes, and a placid expression, measuring out the tears, hysterics and fury in careful bursts. Raima Sen’s lady boss dressed in trousers, with cigarette in hand and lover by her side is a bit of a cliché.
For a thriller the series has pacing problems; interestingly, it ends where the scene is set for Season 2. Sakshi Tanwar as avenging angel once again might be a bit much, unless she can he handed a new bag of tricks—the tag of ‘a mother’s rage’ might not be sufficient.
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in on April 16, 2022)