Recent & underseen indies

Showbiz observers love to see the little guy win. Small indie gems one-upping star-studded mega-films, over-the-hill actors out of exile and wowing critics with a bravura performance, that sort of thing. Perhaps it is the thrill of watching a fairy-tale ending outside of cinema.

With the Big Three — Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hotstar — pumping resources into India operations, it is very likely that between them, they will drown out everybody else. So it’s a smart viewer indeed who samples the best of the lesser-known Indian streaming services — while she still can.

Here are our choices for Indian web-only shows:

Back in 2016, well before she pulled off the most-talked about Veere Di Wedding scene in style, Swara Bhaskar gave us an underrated little indie drama. It’s Not That Simple is the story of Meera, a fed-up wife who, at the beginning of the story, is awaiting a hotel room tryst with her boyfriend. Through flashbacks of varying scale and duration, we piece together what led Meera up to this moment. There’s also the suspense of which of the two old friends Meera will fall for: goodie-goodie, unhappily married doctor Sameer (Akshay Oberoi) or the faux-machismo laden Rajeev (Vivan Bhatena). For me, Swara’s performance stole the show; the rest of the cast doesn’t nearly match up (to that extent, Sumeet Vyas has been roped in for the upcoming second season). The sheer paucity of female-POV dramas, however, makes It’s Not That Simple worth a watch.

Despite the shadow of Two Broke Girls (as well as several other Chuck Lorre shows) looming large over this one, Dice Media’s Adulting still has fresh, funny things to say intermittently. Ray (Yashaswini Dayama) and Nikhat (Aisha Ahmed) are flatmates struggling to make ends meet — until you realise that they are actually struggling to match the lifestyle that they thought they were entitled to it. Bieber concerts, birthday blowouts, the works. And while this does dampen things a little bit, Dayama in particular tries very hard to add nuance to her character. As with It’s Not That Simple, it’s more the competition — or lack thereof — in the female buddy comedy genre that makes this one worth a watch. A renewed focus on realism would help, as would hiring a diverse set of writers (presently, they sound like a greatest hits package of AIB/TVF gags).

Only 4 episodes in so far, but FAQing Around With is already throwing up some interesting results. This is a simple interview-based show, where people from unusual domains — or interesting areas of research/geekdom — are invited and asked the questions that you always wanted answers for. The show began with a Raelian, i.e. a person who believes that people were created and put on earth by an alien race called the Elohim. The second episode featured graduate student Anantika Mehra, who identifies as a polyamorous woman. Mehra’s calm, funny, well-thought-out interview has about half a million hits and with good reason.

The five-minute interview is an established web-only format, and people like Dan Harmon are trying out ways of mixing fact and fiction there. Perhaps, once Arre runs out of fascinating peeps for straight interviews, they can try their hand at something with a more experimental structure.

This is actually a web-exclusive film, directed by Soumik Sen, which Voot has split into six episodes, like a miniseries. One of the few Indian mockumentaries out there (and one of the fewer still to work), Badman stars Gulshan Grover as a fictionalised version of himself, a 60-plus ex-Bollywood villain trying to regain relevance by playing the conventional hero in a pot-boiler. As Grover — and several other Bollywood actors known for playing villain/henchmen — tell us through Badman, once you are labelled, Mumbai makes sure the label sticks.

The gags are well-written, and Grover revels in making fun of his cartoonish on-screen persona. There are also, surprisingly, moments that approach raw empathy and Grover’s performance in these moments is a revelation. A fun, energetic nostalgia caper, especially for those of us who grew up on 90s Bollywood, Badman is much better than it needed to be.

Like Bad Man, this show also trades heavily in Bollywood nostalgia. And while its writing is not as competent as the Gulshan Grover-starrer, AMKAK throws up enough funnies to be light lunchtime fare. Also, it might just be the only show on the list to be self-aware of its status as a web-only show, as an entity angling for likes and shares. Abbas and Mastaan are two film students, who have a burning desire to make the mother of all viral videos. Will their goofball comedy of a life end in tragedy or triumph? This is the central hook.

Their predictable hijinks and misadventures wear thin after a while, but strategically, the episodes are ultra-short, only about five to six minutes each. Off-kilter, keep-your-brain-at-home stuff.