The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives back in botoxed avatar

Apoorva Mehta, Neelam Kothari, Bhavana Panday, Karan Johar, Maheep Kapoor and Seema Sajdeh.

Those wives are back and this time they are younger, thinner and bolder. Someone told them about TRPs. Maheep Kapoor, Bhavana Pandey, Neelam Kothari Soni and Seema Sajdeh, the eponymous wives of The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives on Netflix, have worked on their dialogues and diet before braving Season 2.

The rehearsed rudeness has raised its volume. The husbands – Sameer Soni, Chunky Pandey, Sanjay Kapoor – are a lot more on display, because the women are all, you know, wives. There are dinner parties, much pouting, some sulking and a lot of calling each other a ‘bitch’. Manufactured warfare and marital issues galore, along with loud interiors, which they ooh and aah over. Menopause and designer vaginas are mentioned. Everyone’s expectedly catty.

They have upped the cameo game too: Shweta Bachchan, Malaika Arora, Badshah, Farah Khan, Mehr Jesia walk in and out. Karan Johar and Arjun Kapoor are back too, bringing levity and gravity, respectively, at least trying their best to. And Sima aunty is here, looking like she wandered out of the sets of Indian Matchmaking. She is still worried some women are single.

Instead of flying to the Middle East, this time the wives go to Rajasthan on a holiday. And – stop the press – the Pandeys decide to renew their vows. All offspring look bored or embarrassed as offspring is wont to do. We now know Chunky loves to hang out in his loo, Neelam did something to her turkey neck, Bhavana does facial yoga and Maheep is happy she could tell her house-help that daughter Shanaya signed a film before the house-help died.

The scene where actor Ranveer Singh walks in and all the four wives drool or dance can’t decide if it is lewd or comical. Gauri Khan is still the alpha they bow to, with the wives listening with exaggerated care and reverence when she talks. Bollywood hierarchy won’t allow these biwis superstar status, but they are not entirely unknown via blood ties or chaddi buddies. There is the smell of second-hand fame or former stardom that clings to them. But to establish personalities beyond that and give us their real selves in this scripted format is perhaps asking for too much.

So here they are, the diva quartet, confident in their close-ups, flaunting Lilliput waists, bearing Gulliver grudges. All care has been taken to package them better, to present them in a happening way, to make them mouth seemingly honest opinions. There is a self-conscious airing of vulnerabilities and insecurities running jagged through the tightknit nature of their circle. Our girls go through all the emotions even if their faces don’t always comply. Oh, the wonders of Botox!

So pale an imitation of The Real Housewives series that it sometimes runs like a rip-off, this is a genre Indians are yet to take to, especially in Hinglish. Just like the lip-lock between Chunky and Bhavana, all that high-pitched ‘tu tu mein mein’ between the girls can look staged. Have they found their tribe? Only Season 3 can tell.