Welcome to the world of Vikram Bhatt and BDSM. Rather, the misunderstood world of Vikram Bhatt and BDSM. Maaya, the web-series is about a woman, Sonia/Maaya, (essayed by Shama Sikander) who has witnessed a mentally traumatic event and has a breakdown. Her husband is on a mission to find out what happened in the last six months of her life, the time period she cannot remember due to an onset of retrograde amnesia.
However, he is in for a rude shock as he discovers that Sonia leads a double life as Maaya, who is a submissive in the world of BDSM. Throw in a murder and a few racy scenes and we have Maaya.
Sonia/ Maaya/ Fake Eyebrows
First seen running through a series of places, looking for someone, frantically banging on doors and stopping a man from leaving, Sonia comes across as some dumb bimbo. I will soon be corrected on this since she is a lot more complex. She takes French classes, gets a Mac for passing her French exam, and then has to meet her girlfriends for lunch. #Complex.
Sonia has very complex friends as well. The same friend who discourages her from BDSM on the eve of her wedding, is the one who reads Fifty Shades of Grey and talks about it over lunch. Again, #complex.
She also has drug-addled dreams about her lover, whom she cannot even remember, and for some godforsaken reason likes to have fancy lingerie destroyed.
BDSM: Vikram Bhatt style.
Seems like that is all that women do in Vikram Bhatt’s world. The other women are either women who have no interest in sex (Rahul’s wife), or in a ‘woman-centric’ profession - psychiatry - for which she is ridiculed. Rest of them are overtly sexual, leching at Rahul, or the typical kitty-party ladies discussing Fifty Shades of Grey at brunch.
The Men
Abhishek/ Neurosurgeon/ Closet Real Estate Agent
The men in the series are complete opposites. First is the husband, Abhishek (portrayed by Veer Aryan). Loves his wife to the core. Works with his ex, who is also Sonia’s psychiatrist. Medical ethics are out of the window. Anyway, what Abhishek really wonders about in his free time is who will sit in the office that no other doctors wanted to sit in and how quickly can his ex find an apartment to stay in, in a realty starved place like Bombay. #AlternateCareerChoice
Rahul/ Dom Guy/ Actually, Not Even Beta But Gamma Male
Second, is the lover, Rahul (played by Vipul Gupta). The ‘Dom Guy’. He is a complete beta male in real life. His wife dominates him at home, and it’s almost a sexless marriage since she is highly averse to the idea of sex. He works for her father as an architect. So, his father-in-law/ boss dominates him at work. He poses as the perfect foil for the husband. Where a neurosurgeon cannot even guess his wife’s password and requires the help of the entire IT dept to decode his wife’s gmail account, the lover is a brilliant architect who intends to build an earthquake-proof building made with steel plates instead of walls/ has amazing hacking skills/ writes erotica from a submissive woman’s point of view. Phew.
This is a bit bizarre. An alpha male, is extremely submissive in his daily life. A beta male, is in the most ambitious, male-centric profession. Well, stranger things have happened, so, why not.
The Web Series/ Discount Porn/ Fifty Shades of KLPD
Clearly Vikram Bhatt couldn’t make a movie out of this with the way the Central Board of Certification (CBFC) operates now. Which is as well, because I don’t know whether a captive audience in the theatre would survive the amount of overacting that goes on in the series.
The dialogues are extremely clichéd, and sound oh-so-fake because the characters are unnaturally forced to talk in English with just a smattering of Hindi. The plot again has nothing exciting, and even the chemistry between the couple(s) is non-existent, just like the sex scenes.
It looks like Vikram Bhatt watched Secretary, read Fifty Shades of Grey, thought that BDSM would be a revolutionary concept to Indians, shot a few racy scenes and uploaded it all on YouTube.
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