She’s an unlikely cop—an “anukampa niyukti” (compassionate appointment), in place of her father killed in the line of duty.
In the film (on Amazon Prime Video), Babita Singh Reporting, the eponymous Babita (Nimisha Sajayan) called Baby by everyone in an unconscious way of infantilising or denigrating her, is not taken seriously. When the film opens, her superior officer Sethi (Rajesh Singh) has got her to shoot a reel of him making a starry entry on a bike. The former school teacher sticks to work she is clearly unsuited for, because it is a government job, with perks.
In the two years that she has been a cop in Bhopal, she has never been granted leave, and this time her husband Sharad (Anshumaan Pushkar) and in-laws back in their home town of Rewa (in Madhya Pradesh) want her to visit and organize the baby shower of his sister. To get that leave, Babita lets Sethi talk her into taking the rap for a misdemeanor and accept a two-week suspension.
In Rewa, she meets an old school friend, Bansi (Barun Sobti in a tiny guest role), but before they can have a proper reunion, he is found dead, and the cops arrest a junkie for the murder. Bansi was an artist and sculptor who made effigies for a living, like the giant Raavan, to be set alight on Dussehra.
At home, Babita is casually bullied by her in-laws, and taunted for being overweight and childless. Perhaps because she is tired of being undermined and humiliated, or because the dormant cop in her awakens, Babita starts investigating Bansi’s murder on her own. This does not sit well with the local cops, more so when it comes out that she has been suspended.
She is so obsessed with Bansi’s death, that she neglects to remain the meek, subservient daughter-in-law she is expected to be.
Directed by Ambiecka Pandit, written by Amita Vyas, the film is not so much as a procedural, as an unblinking view of how the ordinary, small town woman has to negotiate the gap between what she is, what she wants to be, and what society expects of her. Interestingly, no male angel arrives to help her as she tackles nasty relatives, junkies, baddies and feral dogs. Also, her husband is not a totally patriarchal monster (like the husband in The Great Indian Kitchen, in which Sajayan starred as a beleaguered wife); at one point he weeps because he insulted her in front of guests, and what will people think of him.
Her persistence in unravelling the truth about Bansi notwithstanding, Babita is not a particularly likeable character—she is either stupidly gullible, or is an annoying busybody– and not in a Miss Marple kind of way. The actress is styled shabbily to emphasise her ordinariness. The film also points out once again, what a strange place small town India is—visually ugly and disturbingly narrow minded, despite access to technological advances.
Babita Singh Reporting
Directed by Ambiecka Pandit
Cast: Nimisha Sajayan, Anshumaan Pushkar, Barun Sobti and others
On Amazon Prime Video