Modern Love Hyderabad review: Six shorts in this anthology train their gaze at one of the loveliest towns in India.After its Mumbai inaugural, the ‘desi’ version of the Modern Love series, based on the New York Times columns of the same name, reaches Hyderabad. Six shorts in this anthology train their gaze at one of the loveliest towns in India, justly celebrated for its North-South locus, distinct Dakkhani culture, syncretic nature, spectacular food, fabulous fabric… I can go on, because I’m a huge Hyderabad fan. I was all set to love this series, put together by some of the best-known names in the city’s creative community– produced by Elahe Hiptoola, creative-produced by Nagesh Kukunoor who has also directed three of the six episodes, the dulcet theme song done by MM Kreem, and worked upon by a bunch of others.
But, and yes, there’s a but, the stories themselves while taking care to incorporate all of these elements – scenes of the old city and Charminar, the world-famous Hyderabad biryani and khubani ka meetha, ande ka lauz and khatti daal, people from different cultures and religions navigating the old customs and brash new tech-driven ways– are pleasant and middling. All edges carefully sandpapered, fingers crossed that no offence will be caused, a most important caveat that creative types have to keep front and centre in New India.
The writing team has clearly been given the heart-warming, touchy-feely, sweet-salty brief, and they have taken it seriously. Keeping in mind the traditional-modern roadmap most Indian cities are drawing for themselves resulting in complicated criss-crosses, we get the whole shebang– grandmothers and grandsons, fathers and daughters, mothers and daughters, and yes, couples too– jostling here, just as they do in Indian rom coms.
A father (Naresh) cheerfully stalks his daughter (Ulka Gupta) as she goes out ‘dating’– over chaste dinners and movies, nothing more– and talks up his ‘responsibility’. In her popular stand-up act, a young Hyderabad woman (Malvika Nair) takes digs at the Hyderabad Man (will wear shirts and ties in office and jump into his lungi the moment he gets home; will have all mod cons in his room and a small photo of the gods, and so on). A pair of killer purple stilletoes form a wedge between a good-looking pair (Aadhi Pinisetty and Ritu Varma) who are, gasp, living-in, with their ‘broad-minded’ sets of parents ratcheting up the marriage talk. This one yields some nice laughs. A pretty microbiologist (yay, the girl has a proper profession) goes looking for the perfect partner: this segment by Venkatesh Maha, who made the terrific ‘C/O Kancharapalem’, had the potential to be a stand-out, but like the others, manages to stay within the safe zone.
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The two with the most predictable beats have the most well-known faces. We know exactly how the conflicted relationship between a mother (Revathi) and daughter (Nithya Menen), with the overhang of a sub-religious conflict and the most delicious food, will play out. And to set it during the first lockdown, after multiple series and films have already inhabited that zone? Suhasini Manirathnam does a good job of playing a loving slum-dwelling grandma to ‘dosai’-loving scamp Ramulu who turns into the suave, successful CEO (Rohan Durvraj), but it’s the one with the creakiest bones.
Kukunoor’s 1998 home-spun little film ‘Hyderabad Blues’ (Hiptoola had acted in it) had been instrumental in setting off a new strain of independent cinema in India. It was fresh and vastly entertaining. I was hoping for the same, if not more, in this nearly quarter-century-later Hyderabad reprise.
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