‘Sarate Aaaj’ is a web series that explores the various divides among the London dwelling Bangalis at the backdrop of a terror attack during Durga Puja. Season one was released on February 21 on Zee5, a streaming platform, which is now available in Bangladesh. The season has six 40 minute episodes and ends with a hint at a second season.
Parambrata Chatterjee is the showrunner and the lead actor of this show. He plays the character of a Bangladeshi “professor” (you’ll know the meaning of the quotation marks when you watch the show), Mahbub, living in London with his brother in law, Swapno (Riddi Sen). Payel Sarkar plays Mahbub’s student and love interest, who is his equal in terms of intellect and disturbing secrets.
The series has refreshing visuals of London in autumn. The intro theme music is very “Rabindrik.” The entire season has a nice collection of songs by Sahana Bajpaie that come up during the drama-filled Durga Puja cultural show rehearsals.
The everyday lives of Bangali diaspora in London comes alive in scenes at the grocery store run by Anwar Chacha (Kanchan Mullick), the bullying of his autistic child Shakil (Risheen Das), and the overall disconnect of Bangalis from the rest of the cosmopolitan city.
The theme chosen by writer/producer/actor Parambrata is a dangerously sensitive one. Even with the best of intentions, it is always extremely difficult to not offend a religious group who are constantly being portrayed as terrorists.
Although the show focuses on the misconstrued differences between Bangladeshis and Indian Bangalis, there really wasn’t a sure way of knowing who was from which side of Bengal. All the terrorists spoke in a generic local dialect of rural Bangladesh. But Parambrata and Riddi maintained their Kolkata accents for some mysterious reason. Maybe a dialect coach can help sort this confusion out in the next season.
All Bangladeshis, except Mahbub, attended some terrorist meeting at some point of this show. There were also some missing links like why the terrorists tried to invest a million dollars in the puja when the requisite security bond was merely 55,000 GBP.
When it comes to dialogues, different characters using the same expressions sometimes made this season seem like it needed one more draft. For instance, every character, from the Arab investor to the Islamic preacher, uses the word “footfall” to express a large crowd, which is odd.
Another shortcoming from my point of view was not having any Bangladeshis or Muslims in the opening credits where all the above-the-line cast and crew are usually listed. In a show that explores the dilemmas of Hindu and Muslim Bangalis from Bangladesh and India, it would surely be more sound to have representation from both sides.
Nevertheless, the show was thoroughly entertaining from beginning to end. It had a steadily progressing storyline that kept the audience interested and invested. If you are looking for a spy thriller that also touches on some impending philosophical issues, you can definitely check out this series.