Nirmal Pathak ki Ghar Wapsi on SonyLiv leaves an impact with its noble ideas, despite a middling execution

Language: Hindi

Somewhere in the third episode of the new SonyLiv show Nirmal Pathak ki Ghar Wapsi a well-reputed political figure is in the middle of a boastful monologue about the elements - religion, money and blessings - that help one thrive in politics when he is interrupted by a young man who calls these elements as “toxic.”  The politician then accusingly smirks and asks him back, “Are you from JNU?”

Amidst its other strengths and limitations, Nirmal Pathak ki Ghar Wapsi gets this one sliver of the current state-of-affairs bang-on. JNU has become an overwhelming part of our collective vocabulary, used in a worrying proportion to describe anyone who questions the norms – and if our TV shows were akin to people, a “JNU-type” is exactly what this show would be slotted as.

Like Panchayat, the flavour of the season, Nirmal Pathak ki Ghar Wapsi too is still a story set in a rural heartland, from the perspective of an outsider. The initial response of Nirmal (Vaibhav Tatwawadi), our protagonist, too is that like of a tourist. He chose a train journey instead of a flight because “it’s all about the experience.” He later video-calls his mother to show her the lush fields in the outskirts, which clearly are a new sight for him. Nirmal is also a writer to boot, so everything he perceives at first comes through a filter of organised thoughts and poetic musings - and more importantly, a conscious effort to make sense of all the unfamiliarity around him.

Writer Rahul Pandey and showrunner Naren Kumar manage to establish a world that feels authentic and lived-in. The show is also helmed by a very capable cast who looks perfectly at home with the thick Bhojpuri dialect (Garima Singh, playing Genda Bua, deserves a special mention here).

But most importantly, Nirmal Pathak ki Ghar Wapsi acknowledges that it's rather impossible to tell a story about rural India without talking about what makes it tick, and what sticks in its throat.

There is a conscious lightness to the initial portions, but the unrest grows gradually with each passing episode as we see Nirmal making a stronger dent in the set-in-stone rules of their house and society. There are quirky characters all around (led by Nirmal’s younger brother Aatish, played by Aakash Makhija, an aspiring politician who carries his Salman Khan love on his sleeves), but the scenes are not necessarily loaded with quirky humorous punchlines. The little hardships of life are not played for laughs either - when a school staff casually mentions to a teacher that the roof of a classroom might fall any day, it's not followed with a funny BGM piece or an exaggerated angry reaction shot of the teacher- she is upset about it and we share her plight, instead of making light of the situation.

There is little effort to sanitise the proceedings - Infact, the show thrives on the discomfort of its commentary. Nirmal Pathak ki Ghar Wapsi is particularly keen on underlining the prevalence of caste divide in our villages, practised both in covert and overt forms. Scenes around the visuals of caste-based discrimination repeatedly find themselves as a point of conflict. (The show’s political stance becomes even more clear when a character points toward an Ambedkar statue in the background while talking about his efforts towards education and empowerment of the underprivileged.)

And unfortunately, this becomes the show’s undoing to some degree as well - The show occasionally comes across like a live-action manifesto, with the protagonist almost too noble and preachy, dealing with issues almost as if ticking items off a checklist. (sadly, in fiction, there can be something like too much morality, if not handled deftly). The issues too get alarmingly graver - from a student’s desperation for a mid-day meal to discreet dowry practices to our collective dearth of mental health awareness - and not all of these land smoothly on execution level.

The show also dwindles between dealing full-throttle with its interpersonal equations and keeping it low-key, seeming never too sure about the weightage it wants to lend to its relationship-driven drama in the overall scheme of things.  It’s a classic case of intent vs execution, and how sometimes the two don’t operate with similar intensity - particularly unfortunate for a show like Nirmal Pathak ki Ghar Wapsi which clearly has its heart in the right place.

Yet, there is a lot to appreciate in the show if you are the one to laud someone’s intent more than their execution, their emotional core than the craft, just like how Nirmal doesn’t necessarily turn out to be saviour despite his strong intent and attempts to bring some change.

While this is undoubtedly a story told from Nirmal’s perspective, the show also captures the patriarchal fences of its universe through its brief yet potent exploration of three women who occupy a limited space in that world.  Geetanjali (Ishita Ganguly) is a local school teacher who is trying her best to ensure an efficient education for the children around, despite the obvious resistance from many authority figures around her who see her sincerity as interference. Reena (Stuti Trivedi), despite being the daughter of a reputed local politician, chooses to discreetly work at a beauty parlour just because it interests her. In one poignant moment, she smilingly begins to boast of her homemaking skills before she bursts into tears over her helplessness. But the show is at its most heart-wrenching when it explores the very-unique mother-son relationship between Nirmal and his biological mother Santoshi (an excellent Alka Amin).

When Nirmal meets Santoshi for the first time (which is well into his twenties), his first instinct is to ask her about her wellbeing, before he remembers the custom of touching her feet. Throughout the show, Nirmal notices Santoshi relentlessly devoting herself to doing chores of a household that doesn’t consider her truly a part of the home. At one point, as Nirmal confronts Santoshi about not accompanying her husband years ago, and Santoshi replies, “how can a daughter-in-law abandon her house?,” you realise that patriarchy leaves its victims everywhere, in all forms, and on both sides of the fences. 

And as Nirmal for all his liberal values tells Aatish in the final episode how he is trying to be like Ram (as in Lord Ram, as Aatish often refers to Nirmal as), and do the right thing, we realise that being right doesn’t necessarily mean fighting toxicity head-on - Sometimes it can also lie in steering your and your loved ones’ path away from it.

Nirmal Pathak ki Ghar Wapsi is streaming on SonyLIV

BH Harsh is a film critic who spends most of his time watching movies and making notes, hoping to create, as Peggy Olsen put it, something of lasting value.

Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.