Kaun Banegi Shikharwati Review: A Patchy Dramedy Series, Starring Naseeruddin Shah, Lara Dutta And Soha Ali Khan

A nonetheless from Kaun Banegi Shikharwati.(courtesy: larabhupathi)

Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Lara Dutta, Soha Ali Khan, Kritika Kamra, Anya Singh, Varun Thakur, Cyrus Sahukar and Raghubir Yadav

Director: Gauravv Okay Chawla, Ananya Banerjee

Rating: Two and a half stars (out of 5)

An eccentric ruler of a kingdom gone to seed and his 4 oddball daughters who’ve drifted aside represent the crux of Kaun Banegi Shikharwati, a patchy dramedy that, even at its lowest ebb, is agreeably flip. It seeks to mine quirky humour from a whimsical king’s determined bid to maintain his flock collectively and save his decaying palace, however an outright snicker riot eludes the present. It is a mildly diverting, inoffensive parody of the repercussions of energy wielded with out accountability.

The Zee5 unique sequence, that includes by Naseeruddin Shah, Lara Dutta and Soha Ali Khan in stellar roles, oscillates between the droll and the emotional. Mercifully, lightness of contact retains the story rolling at a good clip regardless of the various wobbles that it runs into alongside the way in which.

The king, who has no revenue, has run up large wealth tax arrears, having ignored authorities notices for years. His palace is on the verge of being seized. A lawyer means that he put royal property up on the market. A trusted royal aide dissuades the king. They hatch another plan to save lots of the palace. The king fakes a terminal sickness and attracts the estranged daughters again to their childhood dwelling and pits them in opposition to one another in a sequence of royal contests to decide on his successor. How that’s going to assist the monarch clear the federal government dues shouldn’t be clear.

The ladies, who left dwelling in a huff six years in the past, usually are not on speaking phrases anymore. The outdated man hopes his loopy reunion plan will result in the bickering siblings sinking their variations and bonding the way in which they did when their mom was alive.

The ladies arrive on the palace and the video games start. The king’s buddy and adviser (Raghubir Yadav) thinks up competitions linked to the navarasa concept of 9 feelings. But the video games aren’t any enjoyable – the face-offs reignite tensions between the 4 sisters as their vulnerabilities, pretenses and idiosyncrasies come to the fore and muddy the waters yet again. Can the women put raudra (anger) and bhayanaka (concern) behind them and discover shantha (peace)?

That is the query on the coronary heart of the 10-episode sequence. The present banks upon the redoubtable expertise of Naseeruddin Shah and Raghubir Yadav to assist it tide over its drearier moments. The sustained good-humoured wackiness of the story, too, contributes its mite to the duty of papering over the much less interesting elements of the present.

Lara Dutta, Soha Ali Khan, Kritika Kamra and Anya Singh, enjoying girls who need to reckon with a slew of prickly, unresolved points that stem from their previous, form their current and threaten to influence their future, present the present its girl-power core. If one is a management freak who can’t brook something that’s amiss round her, one other is an embodiment of rehearsed tranquility. One is a flighty and chirpy woman who, by her personal admission, has no expertise however is in love with the thought of being well-known, one other is a creatively inclined introvert who struggles to specific herself.

The ladies’ deceased mother (Charu Shankar, seen solely in flashbacks) looms over their lives. A statue of the useless queen stands on the palace grounds. The woman is sorely missed. But it’s the king’s writ that runs right here. He makes legal guidelines on the go with out a lot as a by-your-leave. Democracy bekaar cheez hai (democracy is ineffective), he declares whilst he deigns to bask in some mann ki baat along with his daughters.

An unique viewers with the king is a privilege, not a matter of proper. It’s received to be earned. No marvel the dominion of Shikharwati is within the doldrums. A younger man (Anurag Sinha), part of Shikharwati’s dwindling inhabitants, factors out to the king and to anybody keen to lend him an ear (amongst them is likely one of the princesses) that craftsmen are deserting the village for lack of alternatives and defecting to the neighbouring kingdom of Mewar. The cussed king ignores the writing on the wall.

As the story wends its means in the direction of the climax, Kaun Banegi Shikharwati, collectively directed by Gauravv Okay. Chawla and scriptwriter Ananya Banerjee, gathers a level of momentum. The twin threats of a Dubai don and an undercover income-tax sleuth, which have been hanging over the palace for lengthy, hits dwelling. The Shikharwati ladies, oblivious to the troubles eddying round them, proceed to take potshots at one another.

The prince of a rival kingdom (Varun Thakur) worms his means into the palace, a Shikharwati commoner takes it upon himself to maintain the king within the loop about how his topics really feel about their depleting assets and the royal adviser does his finest to save lots of the individuals and their ruler from destroy.

In the royal family, the princesses don’t make issues any simpler for themselves and the king. The eldest, Devyani (Dutta), has her fingers full. Her husband (Cyrus Sahukar) owes a mafia don more cash than they will rustle up. The second daughter, Gayatri (Khan), a dancer and a member of a non secular commune, nurtures her share of secrets and techniques surrounding her two adoptive youngsters. Her daughter is a psychic who can divine the long run. The king is mighty impressed by her unfailing clairvoyance.

The third sister, Kamini (Kamra), Princess Kaa to her two million social media followers, is a minor celeb who places her foot within the mouth at a poverty eradication marketing campaign occasion and leads to the dumps. The youngest, Uma, is a painfully shy gamer searching for funding for a sport she has designed. Her extreme allergic reactions stop her from moving into the limelight and pitching her artistic concepts to potential traders.

Naseeruddin Shah, Lara Dutta and Soha Ali Khan have the important thing roles, however it’s Raghubir Yadav, enjoying the king’s principal troubleshooter, who usually runs away with the present. He slips into the pores and skin of the character and the screwball spirit of the story with easy ease and enhances Shah’s breezy efficiency because the miserly ruler, which anchors Kaun Banegi Shikharwati. While the 2 veterans maintain the sequence collectively – it does want all their acumen – the 4 lead actresses don’t lag behind. Essaying the liveliest of the 4 roles, Kritika Kamra makes the strongest impression.

Kaun Banegi Shikharwati doesn’t scale any peak however it’s entertaining sufficient to not sink into the form of drudgery it can’t discover its means out of with a bit of little bit of assist from the actors.