Amid Sooryavanshi and 83, a small OTT series emerged as the best of 2021: 25 Years of Indian Cinema

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Ranveer Singh’s ‘83, directed by Kabir Khan, is a fictional account of the 1983 World Cup win at Lords. Ranveer plays Kapil Dev with conviction, managing to look and sound remarkably like him, as do the other actors playing his teammates. It’s Bollywood, so can song and dance be far behind?

Vaani Kapoor and Ayushmann Khurrana in Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui.

The film that was truly different, at least in its premise, was Abhishek Kapoor’s Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui, in which Ayushmann Khurrana played a muscle-bound gym bro falling for Vaani Kapoor’s trans person. Gasp, was this really Bollywood? The idea is great, and both Ayushmann and Vaani do their jobs well: if only it hadn’t chickened out as it goes along, stuffing itself with tropey situations and characters, it would have been quite something.

Umesh Bist’s Pagglait (which came out on Netflix) deals with the different ways humans deal with grief: Is the young widow, played by Sanya Malhotra, as sad as she should be after her husband’s untimely demise? It’s sort of tonally similar to Seema Pahwa’s directorial debut Ramprasad Ki Teravi, starring Naseeruddin Shah, Supriya Pathak, Konkona Sen Sharma, Manoj Pahwa, and Vikrant Massey, in which a large ‘kunba’ is shown responding to the death of the patriarch. Chamber dramas rife with family politics and secrets can make for watchable, and both these pass the test.

In the web series domain, it was Ajitpal Singh’s Tabbar (Punjabi), on SonyLIV, which was by far the best of the year. It revolves around a family in Punjab, melding elements of the crime thriller and family drama in its gripping eight episodes, toplined by the wonderful Pavan Malhotra, ably supported by Supriya Pathak, Ranvir Shorey, Kanwaljeet Singh and others.

Anirban Bhattacharya’s Mandaar (Bengali), an atmospheric remake of Macbeth, was an underrated gem, which deserves to be watched widely. Featuring Debashish Mondal as Macbeth, Sohini Sarkar as Lady Macbeth, Debesh Roy Chowdhury as King Duncan, and the director as a crooked cop, it can easily claim its place as one of the best adaptations of Shakespeare’s play, not just in India, but globally.

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Subhash Kapoor’s Maharani gave Huma Qureshi one of her longest-playing parts. Season one in 2021 presents her as a naive housewife pitchforked into a situation where she has to learn the rough-and-tumble of state politics in Bihar. Her chief minister husband has resigned and who does he appoint as a successor? Those familiar with the Lalu Yadav-Rabri Devi saga will know the answer, and Qureshi’s Rani Bharti is still ruling, even as we speak.