In the last few years, there have been a couple of intense movies, especially in Bollywood, depicting how a mother’s anguish over the abuse of her child and the resulting apathy and negligence of a civil system incapable of providing justice, can unleash a rage within her, that is, at once, primeval, savage, universal, moral and cathartic – a mother’s violent retribution that can virtually cross, if necessary, any limits and will know no bounds. Both Sridevi’s last movie “Mom”, and Raveena Tandon’s “Maatr”, released around the same time in 2017, had a similar subject. A young girl is raped and brutalized, and the perpetrators are shielded from the crime by the fences of money, power, and influence. This is a recurring theme in modern society. The violation of a woman, and the aftermath, which is often tragic and life-changing for the female, barely makes a difference to the rapist. The male can walk away unscathed, but the woman carries the psychological and physical scars of that traumatic experience forever—an indelible patina of pain, embarrassment, and vulnerability is left behind, that tends to shape her life consciously or subconsciously thereafter. Law often fails to touch that center of grief, at most, it can condemn the male and subject him to legal punishment, but that is hardly enough to assuage the irrevocable violation of private space and body that has happened. Civil justice cannot balance the bodily violation. The actual pain may dim over time, but the rage, fueled by pain and haunting memory will remain unabated, perhaps forever.
Netflix is currently showing “Mai”—the rage of a mother, a six-part miniseries about how a plain, loving, and caring mother becomes possessed with grief and overwhelming pain over the unnatural death of her daughter. A chance remark by an accused on his way to prison sets her on a trail to find out the truth behind her daughter’s death, which takes her beyond the boundaries of private grief and embroils her in the middle of a larger conspiracy that threatens to destroy what remains of her family. This series is a moving tale and worth watching. The advantage a miniseries has over a commercial movie is the time it gives for the story to unfold. It affords the creators to develop their Characters and relationships. The context and the back-stories can be firmly etched, and, more importantly, it gives the actors the latitude to evolve and express themselves. A miniseries told well is a very satisfying viewing experience. We are not only drawn into the tale but we are given a chance to live alongside the characters for sufficient time to become vested in them, which even the most well-made cinema often fails to provide unless there is a genius at work. The feeling is akin to reading Tolstoy’s “War and peace”, Vikram Seth’s“ A suitable boy” or James Michener’s brilliant novels, to name a few. These are heavy tomes, richly constructed, gorgeously written, and immensely satisfying when compared to commercial fiction that sells in airport bookshops; they can help kill time, but often fail to provide any lasting and meaningful aesthetic pleasure.
Coming back to Mai. The series is anchored by the brilliance of Sakshi Tanwar, the wonderful artist, known more for her work in several popular long-running Hindi shows than films. This performance in Mai may perhaps be of her finest acting efforts yet. From the first scene, until the very end of the sixth, her focus, her exhibition of range and method in bringing to life the character of Sheel – the orphaned mother – stands out. She dwarfs everything and everybody else in the frame. The moment the camera fills the lens with her face, Sakshi paints it with deep colors of pathos, love, stoicism, and simmering anger. There is a host of characters in the series that provide great support and scaffolding to the story, and individually, all of them have performed well, but, Sakshi is the pivot, it is her role and her art that reflects like sunlight on others. It is through her eyes, that we see the significance of the other characters and their relationship with each other. Such is her grip on the series.
The sheer intensity Sakshi has brought to this role is perhaps unsurpassable. I cannot forget a scene from the first episode when Sakshi breaks down after the loss of her daughter. It is brilliantly constructed and sensitively orchestrated by Atul Mongia and Anshai Lal, the creators of the series. Sheel attempts to dupe a clerk into providing some information, and at the same time, as viewers, we know that Sakshi is not faking. The gravity and the emotional urgency of the information the mother seeks are necessary for her closure. As she pleads with the clerk, Sakshi’s Stoic restraint drops, her face muscles collapse into grief, and tears flow down like rivulets down her cheeks carrying the unspeakable anguish, deep sadness, and longing that only a mother’s heart can feel for a lost child. We have seen a mother’s grief portrayed many times on screen, but in my experience, this singular performance by Sakshi stands out as one of the most authentic and heartfelt expressions of pain and loss I have ever seen. In that frame, in that sequence, Sakshi proves herself as a supremely talented actor, and the rest of the episodes in the show only stands to vindicate it.
What is interesting about the series taken as a whole is that it has diverse storylines that go all over the place. There are liberal doses of mafia activity, conversations around money laundering, references to Swiss banks, episodes of medical fraud and murder, tales of homosexuality, a bit of incest, and other parallel themes that complement the main thread. But despite all these digressions, the story of a mother seeking justice for the death of her daughter, and at the same time working to reconcile the demands of her flailing family, arrests the viewer’s attention. In the hands of a less talented team, these digressions from the main theme could have made the viewer’s experience less captivating and even boring, but not so in this case. Sheel’s character holds the various strands of the story across episodes like reapers encircling a strong pillar. Everything revolves around Sheel’s search for answers, and in that quest, she learns of the wider crime of which her daughter had become an unwitting partner and consequently a helpless victim.
We talk of binging these days. Somehow, I don’t care too much for the word or its connotation. It denotes an uncontrollable excess. Especially, in the world of television, it indicates an urge, a restlessness to watch a series at one go until the end (usually over a single weekend) without the need to pause and relish the journey. Producers have also become adept at creating such material to keep viewers arrested to the chairs with coke and chips, and nothing more than a few thrills and passable suspense towards the end of each episode. Mai is also suitable for Binge-watching if that is what one wants to do. But Mai is much more than just fodder for binge-watching, there is a lot of room for creative appreciation of the work each one has put in. Great acting and a lot of care have gone into making each episode, and together, they form a cohesive whole, with a climax that is as unexpected as it is mind-blowing. Just when we begin to relax after the catharsis of the violent dénouement, a new layer is peeled that turns the tale upside down. A brilliant piece of writing and screenplay. And of course, Sakshi Tanwar’s performance towers overall.
If you have a weekend to spare, please do watch Mai. It is on Netflix.
Bala