Garmi: Not Hot Enough

Dr Khusi Pattanayak

Garmi (2023, Hindi) feels like watching a special edition DVD of Tigmanshu Dhulia’s own Haasil (2003). Two decades is a long time, yet nothing seems to have changed in the Dhulian world – life is still unpredictable and politics is a dirty word.

The story revolves around the life of an innocent angry young man who is caught in the vortex of unpleasant situations which leads him to embrace a life that he never asked for. Set in the womb of student politics and regulated by caste, power, gender, crime, and money, the web series brings into light the corrupt practices of manipulative social systems.

Arvind, the protagonist of the web series, is straight out of Thomas Hardy’s novel.  He is a man who is never in control of his life, fate always intervenes; sometimes as father, sometimes as guruji, sometimes as student leader, sometimes as police and who not.

Uttar Pradesh is now synonymous with crime (not my analysis, popular culture says so); hence it comes as no surprise that the story is set in the state. Garmi gets a few things right – the mood and maladies of student politics, dwindling state of education system, and institutionalised transgression in the name of sanitising society. Credits to the series for bringing back caste concerns into mainstream discussion. The cinematography is refreshing and the locations are beautiful, especially the college campus.

But the dialogues are mundane and the music is inconsistent. Some ideas (about freedom, caste etc.) and situations are over explained, generously undermining the intelligence of the audience and lengthening the episodes. The length of each episode and the general slow pace of the series is probably due to the obligation of fulfilling certain watch hours/ certain episodes for each season. The story moves in circles making the viewing process tedious; you sincerely wish the editor mercilessly edited the episodes.

Anurag Thakur and Jatin Goswami are excellent in their respective roles. Vyom Yadav is good but inconsistent, the rest of the cast is impressive too (in their limited screen time); though I am clueless as to why would the makers decide to cast Mukesh Tiwari in such a forgettable role. Was it because they had to elevate hero’s stature hence pit him against a renowned face? But this is easily established in hero’s righteousness – saving women’s modesty, fighting for rights, avenging dad’s insult, helping those in need, punishing a sexual offender – so why Tiwari? Or was it because he was the only one who agreed to the role without listening to the script? Either way, Tiwari was a waste.

It is obvious there will be a part 2 and this is where I have my reservations. What if there is no season 2? The last Tigmanshu Dhulia offering that I had watched was The Great Indian Murder (2022, Hindi). The series had left me sulking. What kind of sadist leaves a murder mystery series mid-way with no season 2 in sight? Budget definitely is not an excuse when you have Ajay Devgan as one of your producers. After a long wait, I finally ordered a copy of Vikas Swarup’s Six Suspects (the series was based on Swarup’s bestseller) to figure out who the murderer was! If Garmi too went the same way, I would feel hopelessly cheated.

If you can tolerate moderate usage of profane language and have nothing better to do in this sweltering summer you can binge watch Garmi on SonyLiv.