agrah upadhyay

Maharani is a bang-on to the old propaganda of Urduwood (bollywood). Add to that the poor writing and poorer acting and you get a hyped web series like Maharani. If Huma Quereshi's made-up but failed Bihari accent to pronounce school and iskool in the same sentence did not make you laugh, its clear propaganda might make you fret. For a spoiler, the only unabashedly honest character in the web series is one Parvez Alam (besides the eponymous protagonist, of course) and the most hypocrite is a baba with 10 million followers. The series' world view is divided into black and white. All savarnas (upper castes) are unexceptionally bad, corrupt and promiscuous. On the other hand, the intentions and actions of backward caste, if questionable, always arise from a political contingency or an understandable human weakenss. Naxals never kill an innocent while the upper castes keep on massacring innocents indiscrimately and call it as vadh. And as mentioned earlier, the only absolutely blame-less character is one 'Alla ka banda' (as he was addressed in Maharani) i.e. Parvez Alam. Propaganda apart, the series is poorly written with no background synchrocity with conditions of Bihar at that time. For a Bihar feel, some Bihari song is randomly inserted or some typical local words like "boojhe" are spoken by actors unconvincingly. The web series has been criticised in other media publications for no story, an unrealistic copying from Rabri Devi incident and an attempt to whitewash the ghastly jungle raj of Lalu-Rabri. But those critiques have still spared Huma Qureshi. They praise her acting instead. My question to them is to tell me of one single instance where Huma seems to be convincing in her accent or mannerisms of a rural, illiterate woman of Bihar. The web series, at best, joins the growing fantastical world of Urduwood where Hindus, especialy upper castes are uniformly corrupted. And yes, Alla ka banda, if any, is uniformly sincere, a good friend, a loyal officer or a courageous human being.