Review: Bombay Begums

Review: Bombay Begums

Bombay Begums was meant to be a nice premise to tell the story of women who ruled the city in various professions that they indulged in.

But one wonders if every maker for a Netflix show things of sex for 365 Days, pun unintended.

And that perhaps was one reason why Rahul Bose came in as a sex object in the limited web series dominated by women from Bose’s Everybody Says I am Fine co star - Pooja Bhatt with whom re reunited after 20 years, Shahana Goswami, Plabita Borthakur, Amruta Subhash and little Aadhya Anand.

A president, a mid level employee and a greenhorn at the bank are three protagonists along with the president’s step daughter and a sex worker. The sex worker Lily (Amruta) deposits herself on the president Rani (Pooja) after the former’s step son cripples her son. She takes a lot of money as collateral in addition to a school admission. A midlevel employee Fatima (Shahana) is battling depositing her and her husband’s sperms in a surrogate. An Indore kid Ayesha (Plabita) is an ambitious girl with a penchant for alcohol and a big dream to be the bank president one day. Rani’s step daughter Shai (Aadhya) hates her while trying to lure a boy in her class during her various ‘periods’ in class.

Their lives are all entangled after the accident and more so with multiple ambitions, lust betrayal and sex. Well, there seems to be some love, but perhaps it comes too late in the show.

The show ends with a message about MeToo with Rani also telling her backstory in the end helping her actually make peace with her step daughter Shai.

Well begum is half done, or was it begun? That’s fine. The performances are noteworthy, but the editor had a bank holiday. The directors wanted to deliver a certain number of episodes and what better than sex to plug the gaps.

I would have wanted my cashback, had I not wanted to watch Pooja Bhatt in a riveting performance after 20 long years!