No matter where you are in the world, you will come across people who do the most illogical things because someone offered them redemption and riches in the afterlife. If America has preachers in the Bible belt (they would travel by road and preach in makeshift tents, now they have private jets), we have Gurus who promise nirvana as long as you can give up worldly riches to them. It is never as an your face demand as the sentence suggests, but if you have been guru shopping in order to just become stress-free or find peace, then you will know that mental peace comes at a price. No? Your spiritual advisor is not avaricious at all?
That’s why when Prakash Jha created this ‘Ashram’ for the web - and included everything that people like you and me have fallen for at one point of time - there were so many people who hated it. They wanted to burn down the sets and wanted to sue the makers, but secretly everyone knows, ‘There are no free lunches. Even for your soul.’
Pammi Pehelwan, whose story started off this series, sums it up perfectly for us: When my family got into trouble with upper-caste people in the small town, Nirala Babaji showed up and rescued my family. He sheltered us and gave me the opportunity to be able to train and compete in wrestling. But I was so blinded by the bounties showered on me that I became a confirmed believer. And when the Babaji raped me repeatedly, I realised that there was no escape. One, because it would be my word against everyone's. And two, the babaji is so powerful, he could easily squash my complaint if it is ever written down.
Season 3 starts with Pammi on the run with a small-town journalist with the ashram heavies chasing after them with the help of the police. The problem is Nirala Baba is so popular that the cops are unable to separate duty from personal belief and are out to find Pammi who has been labelled ‘Hatyarin’ (she’s supposedly killed her father and brother).
At the ashram, Nirala Babaji (played rather well by Bobby Deol) and his manipulative right hand man Bhopa Bhai (Chandan Roy Sanyal) are busy playing kingmakers. Babaji’s bhakts are in the thousands, and they are a big vote bank. So rival politicians Hukum Singh (Sachin Shroff) and Sundar Lal (Anil Rastogi) approach Babaji for blessings. Babaji asks Hukum, ‘Do you want to become the CM or just be felicitated on the stage?’ Hukum realises that money given to Babaji is the only way he is going to become the chief minister. He does, but he hasn’t realised that everyone who joins his cabinet will also have to pay the Babaji. He becomes a puppet but still hopes that he will be able to do things for the state some day.
While the narrative seems to be straightforward, this season of ten episodes seems long-winded. The makers know that they are touching the pain points of all bhakts of all kinds of spiritual gurus across the nation, yet they don't follow through. We see Nirmal Babaji literally playing with puppets as a throwaway moment, whereas it might have been more sinister if they had shown Babaji and Bhopa laughing inappropriately when the kids at the ashram watch a puppet show instead…
Babaji’s obsession with Pammi is also shown on a superficial level. Bobby Deol manages to look beatific all right, but I wished they had shown his sinister megalomania explicitly. He should be infuriated at the gall of a girl wanting to get away from him, a God rather than the jilted lover we see in episode after episode. Bhopa does say at one point, ‘Looks like you are beginning to believe that you are God. Stop because this woman is nothing but a conwoman like us.’
The woman in question is a conwoman indeed, brought in to create ‘an image makeover’ by none other than Hukum Singh who is fed up of being manipulated. Esha Gupta seduces the Godman literally and figuratively into believing that he is indeed an avatar of the gods. The seduction song was the most unpalatable part of the whole show (and MX Player, if they’re trying to change their image as an OTT platform that has not too kosher content, then they should take heed). Esha Gupta is limber, but that she could seduce Babaji was rather obvious…
Between schemes of conning the conman and running a puppet government, Bhopa is still searching for Pammi. But there are way too many near-misses (shown in detail) between the cops and the runaway couple and the frustration is not just Bhopa’s, it's mine too. How big is the state exactly that they have not crossed the border yet? We have seen incompetent cops in Bollywood for years, but this was pushing belief a bit too far.
And Parminder aka Pammi is rather frustrating in this season. Her character goes through too many ‘let’s go back and kill Bababji’ and ‘Let’s run far away’. And the sudden outburst about how her companion just wants her to be his ‘Rakhail’ and cook and clean for him and take care of his babies, I was like hey! He’s the one who has been taking care of you and making tea for you and you guys have never been shown as a couple, so where did this come from? And why does the lad who’s just helping her not dump her, I seriously don’t understand. It just did not compute.
The sudden introduction of poppy cultivation in the forest area and the awful thread of manufacturing drugs and making the pop star the head of that company makes you go whaaa? Needless stupidity. Didn’t realise they were adding addictive substances to the laddoos! Gurus that encroach forest land to build ashrams, religious groups have laid a claim on forest lands because idols and relics have been discovered. But it’s done in a messy way here.
The cops are painted in such a poor light, you know this is why common folk try to stay away from cops in real life. SI Ujagar Singh played by Darshan Kumar and that one cop friend Sadhu Singh (the reliable Vikram Kochar) seem to be the only decent people in the show, but they’re too low on the ladder of hierarchy to be able to do anything.
I watched ten episodes with the same sense of despair. The narrative needs to move forward. Pammi is stuck trying to prove her case, Ujagar has not managed to save Pammi, the women who seem to have a bone to pick with the Babaji are plotting something one moment and then nothing, Hukum Singh has an ace up his sleeve called ‘bhabiji’ (Nirala Babaji’s wife) but very little is done with it except show us Bobby Deol’s bad deeds as a young man and for some inexplicable reason Esha Gupta just hands it over to Bhopa!
These are just some of the many frustrating events in the show. There's a season 4 in the offing. I would just make a recap video and watch the next season. Why am I watching it? Because I know so many people who are believers that someone sitting on a throne in a cloud of incense surrounded by believers who live in an ashram will help them reach Nirvana. And in my heart I want these fake Babajis to receive their comeuppance in real life as they will in this show.
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