City Of Dreams: When Dynasty Politics Gets Nasty (Season 1)
Cast: Priya Bapat, Atul Kulkarni, Sachin Pilgaonkar, Siddharth Chandekar, Eijaz Khan, Amrita Bagchi, Flora Saini, Creator: Nagesh Kukunoor and Rohit Banawlikar Director: Nagesh Kukunoor Platform: Disney HotStar
Rating: 4/5
6th June 2020, Preeti Ramesh
Two scions to a political empire built from scratch by Amey Rao Gaikwad on the Mumbai docks: Poornima Gaikwad and Ashutosh Gaikwad. The former possesses all qualities needed in a successor, yet she falls short because she “has a va**na between her legs”. Nagesh Kukunoor of Iqbal and Hyderabad Blues fame comes up with his first web series. The series opens to catchy electronic music, a very cunning looking Priya Bapat (Poornima Gaikwad); moves on to a chess ensemble, Mumbai dockyards, then the Mahalakshmi race course, symbolic of Mumbai: Mayanagari, as the title refers.
We find ourselves in midst of an assassination attempt against party leader, Amey Gaikwad, who escapes by the skin of his teeth. Leading the investigation is Wasim Khan, an encounter specialist who looks to revive his once flourishing but now floundering career. He encounters several blockades in his investigation as he taps into his latent network of informants. After all, it couldn’t have been a simple person :“Koi mamooli admi nahin ho sakta hain, Jisne Amey Rao Gaikwad ka supari nikala ho”. What really works against him , however, is the general tide of resentment the Chief Minister played by Sachin Pilgaonkar seems to have developed against him. Part of the mix, is a love story between a sought after sex worker and a call center employee.You wil have to wait till the end, to see how that pans out.
Matters of succession in the party are not contested, as Ashutosh was already being groomed to take over. Poornima tries to play the role of the ideal sister and daughter, though in the face of her brother’s repeated inefficiency her frustration boils over, her long suppressed desire to enter politics surfaces. With a father who is no longer around to stop her and words of encouragement from party loyalist Jiten Kaka and her friend, she steps into the game. Her father’s words” A woman can never be cruel.And you are no longer a Gaikwad, you are Amre. It’s a son who leads the family name ahead”, is the final nail in the coffin. Rather than backing off, the words spur her on to take a step too far; a step that her father could have never fathomed. It’s not that there is no love lost between the siblings; however, when ambitions overtake relations; only succession matters. Siddharth Chandekar who plays Ashutosh spends several screens snorting cocaine. His character comes across as inebriated and dim-witted but power hungry while he spouts lines from “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu.
City of Dreams is a story of our times, supporting the feminist movement. At a time when women are breaking out of their shells, scratch that; have already broken out of their shells, here’s another example of a father who thinks that his ideal daughter needs to be confined to home. No guesses on which side the audience will be leaning.
