The show does not maintain a consistent tone and it is a bit of a letdown. There’s a laid-back pace to the storytelling, which I suppose is designed to mimic the rustic Hindi novels that it is trying to pay homage to-Nirmal himself is a writer. However, Nirmal Pathak Ki Ghar Wapsi parades its protagonist through town like a messiah. A better series, for instance, would’ve avoided the saviour trope altogether. It’s so obvious that nobody involved in the show has even realised the deeper meaning behind what is, admittedly, a stray remark.īut what this brief example of ingrained classism suggests is that the show’s woke-mindedness is not only inorganically infused in the storytelling, but worse, it’s performative. This scene is problematic because it appears that Nirmal Pathak, the show’s protagonist, believes this sentiment. Working like a ‘naukrani’, a person who probably belongs to the most subjugated category of society, is beneath Nirmal’s ‘maa’, it is implied. But later, when his ‘maa’ falls gravely ill, he lashes out at his family for downplaying her health concerns, yelling, “Pura din naukrani jaise kaam karti hain,” without realising the built-in discriminatory subtext of his callous statement. Nirmal deals with complex issues like patriarchy, municipal corruption and the education system. “Yeh ladai aap logon ki hai, meri nahi hai,” a weepy Nirmal tells an elderly lower-caste man in the village, reminding him that he will be around only for four days. He sees him as an external threat and not as a reminder of his much more accomplished brother.ĭomestic disputes are put aside when the show becomes a sort of discount Swades that attempts to solve all social problems. This man, who is constantly yelling at his top of his lungs whenever he appears on screen seems to have it in his for Nirmal. We are drip-fed information about Nirmal’s father, a well-respected man who was outcast from the village many years ago, after having some kind of mysterious altercation with his brother, Nirmal’s ‘chacha’.
Why, for instance, does Nirmal have two mothers-one an English-speaking ‘mom’ and the other a ghunghat-wearing ‘maa’? It is immediately clear that things are not as they seem.
It tells the story about the protagonist Nirmal Pathak, who is a city-bred man in his thirties who returns to his ancestral village in Bihar to witness a family wedding. The show is a sappy melodrama with occasional switches to broad comedy.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, what Nirmal Pathak Ki Ghar Wapsi has to offer isn’t enough. To someone who has grown up on a steady diet of global storytelling, this might not sound like a compliment, but I can imagine for older audiences, for whom an evening’s entertainment meant choosing between three scripted shows and the news, Nirmal Pathak Ki Ghar Wapsi could be moderately enjoyable. SonyLiv dramapossesses the dubious ability to transport you back in time to the days Doordarshan.
#Detective novels in telugu series#
Ironically, the five-episode series is the best streaming show. There’s a difference between being old-fashioned and outdated, and Nirmal Pathak Ki Ghar Wapsi often finds itself on the wrong side of this thin line.