Review: Engaging but Inconsistent, ‘Dabba Cartel’ Gives You Enough To Chew On
'Dabba Cartel' is streaming on Netflix.
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For decades, the dabbawalas have been a fixture of Mumbai – a nearly flawless network where home-cooked food makes it to offices day after day. They became so entwined with the city’s fabric that one might not even spare them a second glance, even when one person carried nearly 30 boxes seamlessly. They’re unassuming and efficient.
And that is a sentiment reflected by the women at the center of Netflix’s latest Dabba Cartel. The name in itself is quite enticing – how will a story about a narcotics cartel carried out using the innocent ‘dabba’ unfurl?
The premise doesn’t sound particularly novel – even if we haven’t seen this exact show before, we’ve seen shows that seem like it – but the makers are seemingly aware of this shortcoming. Instead, they let the premise be just that – a starting point – without letting the genre or the expectations that come with it take over the show.
It all starts out with a pregnant homemaker Raji’s (Shalini Pandey) decision to start a tiffin business with a twist; some of these lunchboxes are sent out with ‘herbal Viagra’. It’s a business her husband sees as a hobby and a domestic worker in the society, Mala (Nimisha Sajayan) sees as an opportunity. When Mala finds herself backed into a corner, this innocuous delivery mechanism is her only way out. Eventually, multiple women find themselves first drawn in and then drawn to the business.
Director Hitesh Bhatia doesn’t rely on heavy dramatisation to tell the story, instead rooting these stories in the women’s domestic and gender identity. More often than not, filmmakers measure ‘strength’ in their female characters by how close their actions can come to the men around them. But the writers of Dabba Cartel never reach for that low hanging fruit.
Instead, they take precise care to give each character arcs and motivations of their own.
With writing like that, it doesn’t matter how much screentime a character gets, they remain memorable because they’re unique. The most impressive dichotomy the writers build is between Raji and Mala. The women in the show can operate the way they do because of how easily society disregards them – they’re invisible to the people around them because they’re women.
The men in their lives, for instance, don’t ascribe any identity to them outside of their relationship with them so they never view them as anything bigger than their parts either.
A tiffin business being a drug cartel doesn’t cross their mind and they use this dismissal and underestimation to their benefit.
And yet, this marginalization extends beyond the lines of gender – in the posh society a lot of these women live in, a class divide also comes into play. Mala, a hard-working single mother, is only a ‘kaamwali bai’ – they don’t respect her, they don’t respect her labour and ambition. While Raji is meek and submissive, Mala is the complete opposite. She’s feisty and unapologetic and she is still underestimated by those around her.
Raji and Mala’s search for a new space to work and expand their business leads them to a broker Shahida (a scene-stealing Anjali Anand), who in turn ropes in Varuna (an impeccable Jyothika) into the mix. Varuna, a former employee at Viva Life pharmaceuticals is trying to get her garment business of the ground, while dealing with her fractured marriage. At the helm of it all is Raji’s mother in law Sheila (portrayed flawlessly by Shabana Azmi) whose past gives her an intriguing and effective insight into the intricate narcotics web.
Another thread runs parallel to their story – a pharmaceutical company finds itself in hot water after a tragic accident becomes national news and casts a spotlight on their medicine. A top executive Shankar Dasgupta (Jisshu Sengupta) is assigned with clearing the mess, aided by his opportunistic employee Hari (Bhupendra Jadawat).
The biggest thorn in Dasgupta’s side is a drug control inspector Ajit Pathak (Gajraj Rao) who carries out the investigation with help from a cop Preeti (Sai Tamhankar). Preeti, another cog in the machine who sees this ‘big case’ as a way to finally get a promotion, sometimes acts out in irrational ways. More than the desperation to succeed, she’s driven by a need to prove herself.
The balance had to be intricate – the story, while conventionally one that could take over the plot, had to remain in the background. To the writers’ benefit, they nearly perfect that balance. This is primarily because of the focus on the protagonists and their interactions with the men involved in the mess.
That is where Dabba Cartel is at its best – when it focuses on the relationships and the way the women’s lived realities colour their decisions. They absorb the rage and violence around them with the acute knowledge that the patriarchal society they exist in doesn’t afford them the agency or freedom to experience it. Without spelling it out in bold letters, Dabba Cartel asks a simple question – how do we morally look at the actions of someone pushed to a corner with little to no way out?
Raji and Sheila form a bond born out of Sheila’s empathy for the way her son disregards her daughter-in-law’s identity and this inevitably rises from how Hari barely acknowledges her existence. And yet, the show doesn’t paint these interactions in black-and-white; it doesn’t try to demonise one to exalt another.
Despite the multiple threads in motion, the show spends time with its characters – it doesn’t rely on unnecessary posturing or half-baked, passionate monologues to get the point across. Most telling is a sequence where two women, cracking under the burden of the consequences of their actions, seek comfort in the arms of their partners. The makers don’t play up the fact that one of the couples is queer or trivialise their identity and their relationship to a ‘point’. In that moment, all four are reduced to one basic act – comfort.
Dabba Cartel isn’t a perfect show – the pacing is inconsistent, for instance. A show like this needed a stronger grip on ‘tension’ – while there are some high points, the makers don’t manage to maintain that sense of urgency throughout. There’s also the fact that the show only seems to pick up by the third/fourth episode, making the investment it asks of you to that point a little tiresome.
The makers take a few liberties when it comes to telling the story as well – for example, the arc of a journalist landing a scoop that instantly becomes breaking news that spreads like wildfire is too convenient a plot device that has been done to death.
It’s a win, for the show, then that the cast is brilliant with each actor effortlessly thriving in their space in the show. Shabana Azmi is a natural on screen, her performance is so delightfully understated that it only heightens the impact. She uses her eyes and simple ticks to speak volumes in scenes where she simply has to stand and watch things unfold.
Raji’s (Pandey) wide-eyed innocence is hardened by circumstance, a shift the actor plays well and then there’s Sajayan with an effervescent turn. Jyothika, a master at restraint, brings the same grounding effect to this show that she did with her performance in Kaathal. Anand is breezy and effective and Tamhankar is endlessly endearing. It’s difficult, incredibly so, to try and put these women into boxes or these performances into a few words.
Dabba Cartel might not have been as impressive of a show as one expected it to be but it does enough to convince you that it’s standing on the precipice of something better. And if the cliffhanger is anything to judge by, there’s much to hope for.
A story that started off as a narcotics deal stuck in a dabba morphs into something deeper, leaving you with more questions than answers. For a thriller, that’s usually a bad thing. Not this time. Not with this crew.