I had watched Niraj Nerurkar’s Reconnect short film a few years ago, and had liked the series as well as his performance which is why I decided to watch another short, Breakup. But as I was watching this series, a few thoughts started crowding my mind.
First, the good part: Though the first two episodes were way too raw which is where most viewers might drop off; episode 3 onwards, the series looks much more polished and starts holding the viewers’ attention. I loved the characters introduced in the story to help Aadi (the protagonist) move on from the breakup – not just a breakup, we can call it a betrayal. Sometimes, strangers help us in ways friends and family can’t.. Maybe because they don’t tell us repetitive things like how we should behave in such a situation, how we should move on, how the other person did not deserve us, and so on.
Let me tell you a quick real-life story. I was once in the ICU’s waiting room. We are all well aware of what the relatives waiting in hospital corridors go through. While everyone was stressed, depressed, and anxious, an infant came running and suddenly fell down. Everyone panicked and the silence heard noises for the first time. The child got scared and was about to cry, not out of pain but fear. His mother stood still behind him, at a distance. Without rushing to pick him up; the mother, lovingly but in a very firm voice, said, ‘Nothing happened. Get up.’ She was so confident while saying that, that the child got up and started running again. This is what strangers do sometimes. They know you have fallen and you are hurting but they stand still, at a distance, and ask you to get up because they know all is well with you. You are just scared and your family is simply anxious. Shweta and Chef were those people in Aadi’s life.
When you have such strong characters, the story should have been equally powerful—not predictable, not repetitive. And even if it is, the ending could have changed how viewers felt about the series, despite some of its technical glitches and rawness. I have always felt that writers should move away from offering only one solution to breakups: an apology from the person who wronged you and the entry of a new romantic interest (or potential romantic interest). Life doesn’t always work that way, and people should learn to move on without apologies or closure. If the writer had given us something new to think about or take away, this could have been a really good story about moving on.
Speaking of the rawness of this series, the viewing experience could have been improved if the credits hadn’t popped up between the opening scenes. Instead of credits, a glimpse of the scene, more credits, and then the series beginning, it felt as though the credits were overlapping with the scenes. This is how I felt; you might not feel the same. The audio is also disrupted in several places—you can see the actors’ lips moving, but there is no sound. In other places, the dialogue is too low in volume, while the music is too loud in comparison to the actors’ voices. Such glitches are inexcusable.
Having said that, such series and films are made on low budgets with limited resources. I really admire the zeal of the actors, writers, directors, and the entire crew, who continue to devote themselves to their work, putting in tremendous effort without even knowing whether their work will ever receive the recognition it deserves. Yet, they continue to put their work out there for the audience to see.
Kudos to them, seriously!
Language: Marathi
Where to Watch? YouTube
