BOMBAY BEGUMS - V Views Reviews #9

As the name suggests,its plot is about modern Mumbai,the urban working women, their complex journey for power and success, their efforts to maintain relationships, issues of patriarchal norms and their struggle for identification. The issues the women face in their workplace and their daily lives are very relatable. It perfectly created the ambience of the corporate world, it's issues and boardroom politics.

This is a woman centric show and is filled with twists and turns. It is not very lengthy. It has only 6 episodes. Language is meant for English speaking upper middle class demographic. There are numerous love making scenes that express power dynamics between its characters.

It's a gripping drama about five women who belong to different classes. It's a cocktail of too many issues bound into singular whole by the narrative voice of fourteen years Shai.

The story revolves around Pooja Bhatt's character as Rani. Her life is intertwined with four other women Fatima, Shai, Lily and Ayesha.

Rani is a business woman. She struggles to balance her career and her personal life. She strongly intends to build a relationship with her step daughter Shai.

Shai is a rebellious teen and in a complicated relationship with her step mother. Her narrative voice is the creative soul of the series.

Pooja Bhatt as the CEO of 'The Royal Bank Of Bombay' played her role perfectly well. Here she is a self made woman. The drama intensifies when her son crashes the car. During this sequence we encounter another important character Lily. She lives in chawl and is a bar dancer. She yearns for a respectable life for herself and her son. When Rani's son gets into an accident with Lily's, she finds that very opportunity to change her circumstances. She and Rani are compelled to find a solution that is acceptable and beneficial to both.

The next lead character is Ayesha who is helping Rani through tough situation by turning it into a beneficial opportunity. She helps Lily in setting up a factory as a part of the Bank's corporate social responsibility programme. She is young blood enamoured by the powerful women, aspiring to be one of them. She is desperate to make a name for herself. Throughout the drama she struggles to find a place to stay in Mumbai, she struggles with her job and ends with getting sexually accosted by a senior employee.

The drama intensifies further with Fatima who struggles to maintain work life balance. Her personal life is not all smooth sailing. Professionally she is trying to climb the corporate ladder but her unexpected pregnancy and miscarriage throws her plan off  course.

The five principal female characters are Pooja Bhatt, Sahana Goswani, Amruta Subhash, Plabita Borthakur, Adhya Anand.

Bombay Begums is currently streaming on Netflix.