For those who were not witness to the division of Bihar and Jharkhand ‘Maharani Season II’ will appear as a fiction but for those who keep an eye on the rustic politics of the Hindi belt will very easily land in the State of Bihar.
One of the strong reasons for this is the role played by the characters is so real that the viewers get a feel of the present day Bihar and watches closely for the next move in the film directed by RavindraGautam. Speaking in a formulaic form, the achievement of 'Maharani 2' is that one can see it very judiciously and ultimately blaming no one for any mess except a few miss matches with physical appearance and phonetic manipulation. Here it is evident that the accent, script and dialogue delivery must have been done by taking the characters for a rural tour to observe the Bhojpuri speaking people.
Unlike the prevailing web series, where bloodshed, fierce abuses, unnecessary crime scenes are restricted in the movie, but full justice has been done to depict the tales of nexus between crime and politics. The theatrical feel is intact and each shot opens a new layer yet some angles are there to discuss about.
It’s quite natural to remain connected with Bihar in the entire movie and the director RavindraGautam has succeeded in this mission. The film makers have tried to portray the background to the Bihar of the 80s and 90s. But they have not claimed it anywhere in the movie. It is good also. Unlike Bollywood's sellers and promoters, the Bihar angle is not explicit. The happenings, characters, some names unquestionably come to the front in such a way that Bihar (the one before division) appears on its own.
Yes, to enjoy the moves in the film you need to be in meditation mode. Be a movie buff and forget connecting yourself with any states of the country but keep in mind to relate it with the present day political scenario which needs a greater reform but is not possible with freebees galore across the nation. Please don’t get entangled in connecting the strings of facts otherwise you will miss the gist and performance.
The director has tried to resemble many known faces in the bureaucracy while taking the audiences to the Yadav couple of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, Sadhu Yadav, former Siwan MP Shahabuddin, Jharkhand’s ShibuSoren, father of HemantSoren, the present chief minister and many not so popular but imminent politicians. This is evident from the monkey mind arguing and taking you to a free day trip to one of the politically active states, Bihar. Maharani Season II keeps the viewers on and off from the screen and physical location.
Full of masala the movie does not let you go out of Bihar. There are vicious characters like Prem Kumar and Nagnath. There is also a lady version of PrashantKishor from the later days. Each character justifies itself. But the muddle happens when the story of Bihar gets a high voyage of imagination and the story suddenly takes a big turn and takes the viewers to another realism. Which at present is neither true of Bihar nor of the country. The look of the ideal is such that there is no hope of the future! It's a kind of magical reality. However, from the end of Season 1 to the end of Season 2, there is no harm in dreaming of the magical reality that Maharani usually debates about. I wish politics could be like this! It must be said that the excess of truth seems to be 'more than excess' at some point when looking at characters so close to the truth.
Barring the dialogue delivery and the rustic accent in accordance with the acting with the designer attire HumaQureshi is brilliant in both the seasons. Huma needs to achieve perfection by lifting herself. The lack of Bihari pun of dialogue delivery knocks at times. The central character Maharani has the accent of Rabri Devi but the pronunciation is more like that of Yogi from UP, especially when she pronounces 'ksh' as 's'. But this does not hinder her acting skills from anywhere.
The rest, Vineet Kumar (Gauri Shankar Pandey i.e. Nagnath), AashiqHussain (Prem Kumar), AtulTiwari (Governor Govardhan Das), KaniKusriti (Kaveri), PramodPathak (Mishraji), Divyendu Bhattacharya (Martin Ekka) leave amazing impressions. While Naveen Kumar (AmitSyal) is as present as last time with his 'tooth in his stomach' quirks, it's no exaggeration to say that Sohum Shah (BhimaBharti), despite being Marathi, leaves a deeper impact than last time.
The disappearance of many important characters of the first season is definitely going to knock the minds of viewers. However, the maturity of some characters has come to the fore in this season which was irritating in season one. It was also a challenge for the series creators.
However, watching on the screen, the dialogue of this web series gets stuck in the throat of the viewer many times, 'as soon as you contemplate you have understood Bihar, Bihar gives you a sudden jarring impact. The writers have placed some dialogues somewhere in their own defence which should have been avoided. One thing is for sure that the viewers will not get involved in a debate with themselves about reality and the magical reality. There is no harm in considering that this is the truth and is happening across the country.
The writer and director even want to avoid telling it the story of Bihar. This is the reason when we are looking at it as a story of Bihar, it seems superfluous and imaginary. This amalgamation of reality, fantasy and magical reality binds several times, even when the sleepiness breaks. The final sequence of both the seasons, the discussion of Verma Commission in place of Mandal, the PadukaYatra instead of RathYatra and the devious but vicious twist of Naveen Kumar's character are part of such a mix, which do not hinder, but add to the cinematic bliss.
The main focus of the series is on SubhashKapoor, who has a distinct identity in the Bollywood for including some altered commentaries on the ploy of his films. Nandan Singh and Umashankar Singh have to be praised along with Subhash for Maharani's tight script and sharp dialogue writing, this is also praiseworthy. This time the audience must stay for some longer as the song-music has added more entertainment. The creators must ponder together to produce a more contemporary next Maharani.
The author is an independent corporate PR professional associated with News & Event Management Alliance (NEMA), Bengaluru. The views expressed are his personal.He can be contacted on nema.overseas@gmail.com.
