Pushpavalli - Season I: Review

Thanks to good old Bollywood, we have spent eons romanticising and internalising the idea of being stalked around by a man because, you know, it is a display of love and ladki ki naa mein bhi uski haan hoti hain. With stand-up comic Sumukhi Suresh’s Amazon series ‘Pushpavalli’ coming along, the very idea is inverted. Instead of a male protagonist, we have a young woman at its centre. Doesn’t seem as romantic anymore, eh? Pushpavalli (Sumukhi Suresh), a young woman, embarks on a journey from Bhopal to Bangalore to pursue Nikhil Rao (Manish Anand), the man she is smitten by after a chance meeting at a food conference. Hopelessly obsessed, she leaves no stone unturned trying to figure out his whereabouts. She goes from borrowing phones to striking a deal with the neighbourhood tea vendor and is far from being remorseful about throwing her colleague under the bus. Within the first few minutes of the first episode, we are sucked into her world, with ease; one with a broken English-speaking paying guest accommodation owner, a quintessential Indian soap opera mother whose sole purpose is to see her "chubby" daughter married and Sunny Side Up, the titular character's workplace, a children's library headed by Pankaj (Naveen Richard), an F-bomb dropping loudmouth.

Although it is established quickly that Pushpavalli is a compulsive liar, even worse, a stalker, and her willingness to go to any length is unprecedented, she still possesses a tinge of innocence. Her failure to understand how dating works or having to quickly google what 'flashing' means demonstrates that. It does not end here. Just when you assume you have her all figured out (and what’s the fun in that?), she shocks you. Our protagonist, played magnificently by Sumukhi, unknowingly carries the burden of her mother’s antiquated mentality and believes that she isn’t good enough. However, when her object of desire chooses to go beyond her appearance and thinks she's 'fun', she does get some respite, briefly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5M_sdbFoYg&ab_channel=AmazonPrimeVideoIndia

Naveen Richard who plays the printed shirt-wearing Pankaj beautifully marries anger with hilarity. His character is bad with kids, insecure, and one who uses his exterior to conceal hurt. He has feelings for Swati (Preetika Chawla), a single mother of one of the children in his library, but is almost disappointed when the out-of-league-for-Pushpavalli Nikhil is also a part of his almost perfect picture.

While moving swiftly between comedy and drama and the past and present, season 1 of the show predominantly focuses on Pushpavalli’s problematic behaviour from an unbiased lens. Further, the writers (one being Sumukhi herself), besides giving us some stirring

punchlines, also touch upon several issues like harassment, the conversation around menstruation, and the age-old notion of reducing a woman’s worth to her appearance and marital status, tactfully.

Pushpavalli is far from being perfect, but it still creeps up on you and gives you enough to stay put till the very end. It makes you guilty and a little awkward for rooting for the titular character's delusions, yet leaves you wanting more. Thank God for season 2!