The title is catchy enough to draw an audience into a housing society in Mumbai’s neighbour Thane, where the residents are all employees of a pharma company called VivaLife. Dabba Cartel, directed by Hitesh Bhatia, is a seven-part series (on Netflix), that dances around the moral issues of the narcotics trade and focuses on the smarts five ordinary women bring to the table, when they dip their toes into the ruthless business.
In one of the flats, young homemaker Raji (Shalini Pandey) makes some extra cash supplying a herbal ‘viagra’ in the tiffins delivered by her sharp-tongued domestic help, Mala (Nimisha Sajayan). Her husband Hari (Bhupendra Singh Jadawat) dreams of going to Germany, while his stoic mother, simply called Ba (Shabana Azmi) is a silent observer. A society busybody Mrs Tijori (Sushmita Mukherjee), bans the running of business in the flats, so Raji and Mala have to look for a place, which brings them in touch with the with chirpy, chewing gum-chewing broker’s assistant, Shahida (Anjali Anand).
Mala’s boyfriend works for a drug peddler, Chavan (Sandesh Kulkarni), and tries to blackmail her into supplying drugs in their tiffins. Between one thing another, the women end up in a huge debt to Chavan, and forced into the drug trade. To their surprise, Ba turns out to be the leader– she has connections with the mafia in her hidden past. Varuna (Jyotika), the wife of VivaLife head Shankar (Jisshu Sengupta) is faced with trouble with her boutique, and more than the money it is the loss of face she fears, so she is dragged into this enterprise.
Running parallel to the antics of the Narcos: Thane (as Varuna calls them), is a mousy man with a bad combover, Ajit Pathak (Gajraj Rao), a government employee in the medical drugs department, who is assigned to investigate a banned medicine, Modella, which allegedly contains an opioid and has caused the death of a woman in the series prologue. An enthusiastic rookie cop, Preeti (Sai Tamhankar), is given the task of assisting Pathak. VifaLife, which had fudged trials and released the drug into the market, believed that their bribes had covered their illegal tracks, but they had not bargained for this unlikely duo that chases down every little lead.
Eventually, the two plots converge, and all the subterfuge that the characters have been indulging in blows up in their faces—even if it involves a lot of script contrivances, like a man overhearing a conversation that has to do with his situation, while sitting in a bar, or Preeti and Shahida falling in love.
A more realistic and less violent version of an earlier show, Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo (starring Dimple Kapadia), Dabba Cartel (written by Vishnu Menon and Bhavna Kher) works out small details, builds on relationships and character graphs of the women—all played by formidable actresses.
Even after the debt is paid off, they want to continue for the money and the thrill, with only Raji raising any objections. It is also all this layering of complications that slows the pace and turns the plot from light to menacingly dark. The women seem to have no concerns about the effect of their trade on the people consuming the drugs, and, at no point do they think of approaching the police for help when things go out of hand. As Ba says to her old friend Moushmi (Lillete Dubey), nobody ever gets out of the drug trade. However, for her, more than the money it is the rediscovery of her power that keeps Ba stay invested despite the risks, not just from the police, but from remorseless rival gangsters. It is Ba who, after a chilling encounter with a sadistic drug lord (a superb cameo by Sunil Grover), takes the decision that lays the foundation for a Season 2.
Dabba Cartel
Directed by Hitesh Bhatia
Cast: Shabana Azmi, Jyothika, Nimisha Sajayan, Shalini Pandey, Anjali Anand and others
On Netflix
