Bombay Begums on Netflix

It is a 6 part long webseries which was released on Women's Day and revolves around five seemingly empowered women who belong to different stratas, different ages and are facing all sorta different struggles which most women can relate to.

The intention of the makers seems really great but, the efforts fall short somewhere. Many things were repetitive and unnecessary. It could not create an impact and connect the way it could have!

Its Pooja Bhatt's comeback as an actor after almost 21 years and she has done a fair job as Rani: a powerful woman, who started from scratch and has achieved a lot in life except for acceptance from her own family.

Shahana and Plabita were perhaps the best performers and did a great job keeping it realistic. Shahana Goswami as Fatima: the fiesty ambitious woman who can crack the best of deals with her quickwit and presence of mind but has been dealing with a lot of internal struggle, self prejudices and dissatisfaction in her personal life. Plabita Borthakur as Ayesha is equally ambitious but more vulnerable, confused and naive middle-class woman who discovers her strength and clarity along her journey.

Amruta Subhash's character as Lily: a bar dancer turned prostitute who is desperate for a normal, decent and respectable life for herself and her son, was really strong but, you end up feeling she is trying a bit too hard to convince the audiences about her battles and ordeal and fit into that role.

Aadhya Anand the youngest of the five brings in some freshness and innocence through her role as Shai a stubborn teen and Rani's step daughter. She is artistic, talented, but has body image issues and ends up falling for the wrong guy. She has done the voiceover for the entire series.

Her thoughts about her own struggles have been used to create an association with whatever other female lead characters are going through. This doesn't seem very apt and convincing, considering she is a 13 years old, who is messy and clueless about so many things in her own life but sounds so sorted and liberal in her conversations and commentary.

The male caste of the series Rahul Bose, Vivek Gomber, Manish Choudhary, Dan Hussain have all been really under utilized and given very superficial and insignificant roles. Vivek Gomber as Fatima's insecure and unsupportive husband has been totally wasted as I was really looking forward to watch him, after his amazing performance in the movie 'Sir, Is love enough?'

All males with an exception of Ron: Ayesha's friend (played by Imaad Shah) have been showcased as typical MCPs, sex starved, insensitive people acting like total villains. It would have been good if some depth of character was put atleast in few of them.

The series talks a lot about women issues and struggles like body image problems, work inequity, sexual dissatisfaction, gender bias, sexual harassment at work place, struggles with being a step mom or not being able to conceive and how males make it so much more difficult for each one of them but it doesn't dive deep or highlight the prejudices and biases that all the women themselves have: their own patriarchal mindset, pulling other women down, brushing things under the carpet, infidelity, bribing, using wrong means for selfish gains.

How can it be truly feministic when everything done wrong by a woman is tried to be justified because of her past personal struggles? Overall a good attempt but could have been done much better if it was given a more balanced approach and the wonderful cast could have been used to their truest potential.

My rating is 6.5/10