The Avenging Angel – The Sanction To Kill ?

How many mothers, in reality, have the choice of taking revenge against injustices done to their sons and daughters? I would say nil. What could Nirbhaya’s mother do when her daughter was barbarically raped by the bus driver and conductor (one of them a juvenile) in front of her helpless boy friend? What could Jessica Lal’s parents do when she was gunned down in a bar by a politician’s son in an inebriated state? In both cases the Court did a fast track under mounting public pressure roused by the media. What happened to the more recent SSR suspected murder case – a celebrity whose father was part of the police force? There may be innumerable such cases in the lives of common masses happening in this huge sub-continent every minute and dying natural deaths because our system does not permit proactive policing and super-fast judicial redressal which again does not mean that the parents take the law in their hands and transform into avenging angels. It does not happen like that except in fiction and cinema.

I am not trying to open a Pandora’s Box here. What I intend to pinpoint is that there are so many strands intricately interwoven in such matters that it is not easy or even at times right to take steps which are dangerous as well as detrimental to one’s own sanity. What is the option then? To go on brooding silently? Let time take its own course to heal the wounds? To keep on ranting about it till someone hears you out and initiate action against the wrong doer? I think every case is unique in all its dimensions. Therefore, resolution is also on case to case basis dependent on a myriad of facts and factors.

But this is not the case in “Mai”(Mother), the web series (Season One) on Netflix which has drawn positive as well as negative critiques and responses. The theme is hackneyed on which many movies have already been made. Most recent being Sri Devi’s last – “Mom”. The only difference being the change in backdrop – small town Lucknow – and the crime being more complex – medical scam, money laundering, corrupt judiciary, power play amongst gang lords, aspirations of small timers to hit the jackpot and become big time mafia kingpins, ineptness of Special Police Force (SPF) to nab the culprit in time etc. etc.

Amidst all these is a middle-aged middle-class homely woman who is sucked into the vortex of gore, violence and foul play to avenge her daughter’s sudden death by road accident which she suspects to be murder. And as time ticks on and layers after layers of dark deeds peel off, she gradually transforms from a vulnerable, submissive saree- clad woman into a ruthless, unforgiving revenge seeker. She (mis)uses her medical training (as a nurse) to silence tricksters and gangsters when they refuse to vomit out the truth about her daughter’s killer. She quickly learns to glib talk her way into hideouts and villains’ dens as and when required. She plays one mobster against the other like a smooth operator and finishes off the last of her hit list without a speck of qualm. The depth of her hatred is unfathomable!!

What does she gain in return ? Her family (husband’s brother and wife) grows to dislike her. Her husband cold shoulders her. Her son, who was adopted by her husband’s brother and wife, even after knowing the truth, still calls her chaachi (aunty). Does she actually find peace after so much of life risking blood bath ? There are so many questions which remain unanswered – usual cliffhangers for the next season.

She goes to the extremes to tick off the suspects one after the other. But the police never suspects her. The case is handled by the SPF. But they only make guest appearances whenever the script suits them to do so. She remains absent from the house at nights. Her husband is unaware of it. She scales high walls in ugly, worn out walkers, enters buildings through small windows balancing on half broken ledges, she follows deadly men and an armed woman through murky alleys in the dead of the night, she disposes off bodies in cold storage with the help of another ally (a woman who had had a stint in prison on charges of hacking her violent husband to death), she shoves a dead body under the bed and coolly has a conversation with her hubby, she raids a chemist’s shop in a burqa and poisons the crook’s mole inside SPF barricaded safe house!

Credulity surpassed, the entire series is relentlessly bound by just a singular stronghold – the stupendously credible performance by mai – Sheel Chaudhary played by Sakshi Tanwar. She is unapologetic in her cruelty yet manages to incur the viewers’ wholehearted sympathy. As the bloody tale unfolds it is hard to figure out whether mai is blackmailed into random acts of outrages by the twosome- Prashant and Shankara – former sidekicks of the gang leader (Jawahar) – who actually discovered that she had unintentionally killed their boss – or these were instigated by her own convoluted sense of justice and tragic loss.

Mai is unbelievably gruesome. I do not know whether karmic progression routed through the path of unwavering and enormous forgiveness should be touted as the more effective alternative. But what Mai shovels up is your own ineffectiveness and lack of daunting courage which you failed to muster at times in the face of acute indignity and wrong in your life. Whether it was advisable….whether it was desirable…..whether it was feasible……that’s another story!!!