A Suitable Boy
Ratings: 3.9/5
Director: Mira Nair
Executive Producers: Mira Nair, Vikram Seth, Andrew Davies, Faith Penhale, Laura Lankester, Will Johnston, Lydia Dean Pilcher, Aradhana Seth, Mona Qureshi, Ayela Butt
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Release Date: 26th July - 24th August 2020
Streaming on: Netflix
Episodes: 6
Star Cast: Tabu, Ishaan Khatter, Tanya Maniktala, Rasika Dugal, Mahira Kakkar, Ram Kapoor, Gagan Dev Riar, Vivek Gomber, Vivaan Shah, Shahana Goswami, Mikhail Sen, Thomas Weinhappel, Namit Das, Danesh Razvi, Joyeeta Dutta, Sharvari Deshpande, Shujaat Khan, Shubham Saraf, Randeep Hooda, Aamir Bashir, Ranvir Shorey, Vijay Varma, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Vinay Pathak, Manoj Pahwa, Sadaf Jafar, Mansi Multani, Amrita Dass
Plot:
Directed by Mira Nair and adapted by Andrew Davies from Vikram Seth's 1993 novel of the same name, this television drama is set in North India during 1951-52, five years after India's independence from the British Raj. The story follows the life of educated Miss Lata Mehra (Maniktala), a graceful English literature student whose single status and growing age is of great unease to her widowed mother. Instead of enjoying poetry readings and T.S. Eliot, she should be married and settled with a nice Indian boy from a respectable Hindu family.
Alas, modern girl Lata has other plans, one of which includes unexpectedly falling in love with a Muslim fellow student Kabir Durani (Razvi). After that, enters- flamboyant poet Amit Chatterji (Sen). Tall, dark and handsome, Chatterji is determined to impress Lata with his flowery prose and Calcutta high society connections. Last, but by no means least, is London returned Haresh Khanna (Das), a sales executive in the footwear industry whose shoes and work ethic are more to Lata's mother's liking.
Review:
As Andrew Davies begins, “India was free, but the land and the people were divided for ever.” Great period drama has been the audience’s favourite from time immemorial. A Suitable Boy, interestingly, does not quite deliver the magnanimous and vintage magical quality of the genre.
There is a lot going on in the first episode. Four large families, the birth of Hindu nationalism, an upcoming general election, the requisite music and dancing and wedding - this is India pictured by Davies. Lata, a spirited university student, is preparing for her sister’s arranged marriage as her mother warns her that she, too, “Will marry a boy I choose”.
The good aspects of the series are credited to the majestic sets and the elaborate costumes. As the courtesan Saeeda Bai, Tabu is supremely impressive. She shares most of her scenes with Ishaan Khatter, who plays Maan Kapoor, the wayward son of a local politician. Maan’s arc has a unique polished and rugged quality to it.
As it is based on a Vikram Seth novel, which is one of the finest English works of the 20th century, an intimately detailed book set in the early 1950s looks closely at its characters without any judgement, but the series honours none of those things.
The book presents Lata as a character of great literary knowledge, very nuancedly layered, but the series turns her into a caricature, a woman with her wide eyes screeching at the prejudices. The book does not forgive her prejudices, but places her concerns in the context of the time.
The language underlines the caricaturing. Characters speak English as if they are speaking the language for the first time. There is, without any doubt, a splash of theatrical exaggeration. More importantly, while the book mentions what line is spoken in what language, the series shows shopkeepers and watchmen who would have spoken perfectly fine Hindi, Urdu or Bengali but had to go for weak English.
This portrayal of the saga of Vikram Seth into a family drama is in parts disappointing, but is to be credited for the attempt!
