It is difficult to make a fair assessment on how deep into the slush Ek Badnaam Aashram jumps to “expose” the cult of godmen. Bobby Deol’s bovine Baba Nirala is the kind of sleazy godman that no self-respecting anti-hero would want to play. There is a limit to artistic licence, and to even extend the word ‘art’ into something so emphatically sleazy is a crime against grime.
I waded through five concluding episodes of the third season in the hope of finding a glimmer of redemptive light at the end of this pitch-dark tunnel. Sure, the law finally catches up with Baba Nirala (he, with that single smug I-know-it-all expression which Bobby Deol sported every time he missed the awards). At the end I got the very disturbing feeling that this dangerously sleaze-friendly series will find its way back on the OTT platform. God forbid the Godman’s return for a fourth season!
The five concluding episodes of Season 1 unravel like bidi wrappings, and the stench of rot prevails. There is a long flashback in the fourth episode highlighting Nirala’s rise from bhakt to ruler. The antics of this godman are offset by the very talented Aditi Pohankar struggling through scenes of gratuitous sex where she must act as the streetsmart seductress. Her Pammi is so rigorously brutalized that it almost feels like torture porn.
After being raped by Baba Nirala and imprisoned, Pammi seduces Baba’s righthand man Bhopa (played by another talented actor Chandan Roy Sanyal) to take revenge on Nirala.
The treatment of sexual violence throughout the series is reprehensible. The male gaze is purely predatory both within the series and from the outside. It is hard to believe that Prakash Jha, who once tailored such socially relevant clarion calls as Damul and Ganga Jal, actually directed this series.
An expose on the Baba culture is just what we need. But not when the script seems to enjoy the Baba’s antics.
