A stolen motorcycle– ‘dupahiya’– in the fictional village of Dhadakpur becomes the fulcrum around which this new comedy and its characters revolve, delivering a melange of Bihari-via-Mumbai accents, loads of quirk and broad life lessons. This is the mix that gave ‘Panchayat’ its mojo, with Phulera’s Sachivji and Pradhanji and their cohorts becoming a byword in the madly-popular OTT-specific ruralcom genre. Here, Uttar Pradesh is replaced by Bihar, but the mood remains similarly overall sunny, as the occasional clouds created by the busy plot (written by Avinash Dwivedi and Chirag Garg) are dispelled by the show’s determinedly cheerful air: leave the viewer smiling is clearly the mandate.
The idea of a crime-free village in Bihar– what’s that — has to be a figment of the writers’ imagination. But we submit to the doings in Dhadakpur mainly because its ensemble cast is so committed to their designated tasks: fixing a suitable match for affable school-teacher Banwari Jha’s (Gajraj Rao) daughter, the city-loving Roshni (Shivani Raghuvanshi), which then rolls over into finding the stolen ‘dupahiya’ which has, in turn, stolen the heart of prospective Mumbai-based groom Kuber (Avinash Dwivedi, terrific).
It takes nine episodes, each counting down to the day the ‘baraat’ arrives, to introduce us to Dhadakpur’s residents. The lady-in-waiting to get to the top panchayat post, Pushplata Yadav, (Renuka Shahane), who tries her hardest to prevent the theft being registered as an FIR at the ‘thana’ run by somnolent-but-sharp Mithilesh Khuswaha (Yashpal Sharma): gasp, an actual crime in an ‘apradh-mukt gaon’?
Watch Dupahiya trailer here:
The school-teacher, desperate to be the principal, now even more desperate to find the ‘dupahaiya’, even if he has to rope in his layabout son Bhugol (Sparsh Srivastava), who reaches out for help to Amavas (Bhuvan Arora), a local light-fingered fellow who has feelings for Roshni.
The canvas is crowded, with subplots and supporting characters, some there just to fill time or amp up the quirk quotient. Relatives landing up early to celebrate. Wannabe reporter wanting to do real ‘patrakarita’ being lectured on the state of journalism today, allowing some digs to be aired: ‘confirm karna logon ka kaam hai, hamaara kaam hai chhaapna’, smirks the local rag’s editor (Brijendra Kala, as always leaving a mark, even walk-on parts). A deep-skinned girl putting her ‘padha-likha’ status to one side as she seeks fairness. And, if it is Bihar, how can a ‘launda naach’ be far behind? In perhaps the only risible portion in this clean-cut village saga, we get Srivastava and Arora, both very good, swing it.
That it is strictly for laughs makes the whole ecosystem which runs that tradition not really of interest to the show. In the same vein, self-esteem connected to the colour of the skin — a worthy subject — is dealt with by the fair-skinned Roshni talking up brains and beauty, and a convenient hook.
You can see the conundrum from afar: addressing problems of women in power, and the ills of colorism and dowry– because that’s literally what the demand of the dupahiya boils down to — can make the whole thing heavy, and how would that sit with the light-hearted vein of the show?
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Best to make peace with it, and enjoy ‘Dupahiya’ for what it aims to do — deliver clean, ‘socially-relevant’, family-entertainment — ‘na gaali, na dunaali, na katta, no goli’– an anti-Mirzapur, if you will, even if the accents drop, and even when there are lags. Plenty of laughs are thrown in, topped by such helpful lines: ‘yeh Bihar ka Belgium hai’. How can you not crack up, even when you know that it is a dialogue?
I’m pretty much done with non-stop gratuitous ‘gaali-galaauj’, so I will take it, thank you.
Dupahiya cast: Renuka Shahane, Gajraj Rao, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Bhuvan Arora, Sparsh Srivastava, Avinash Diwivedi, Yashpal Sharma, Samarth Mahor, Godaan Kumar, Anjuman Saxena, Chandan Kumar, Brijendra Kala
Dupahiya director: Sonam Nair
Dupahiya rating: 3 stars
