NPR’s Love Commandos review: Inside the messiness of ‘forbidden love’

On the face of it, Sachdev is a messiah, a brazen voice in times of increasing polarity. He affirms the rights of two individuals to love whomever they want.

In 2012, Sachdev sat next to Aamir Khan on the actor’s talk show Satyamev Jayate to speak about his network of volunteers and shelter homes in front of thousands of viewers. Soon after, couples in need flooded the group’s Facebook page with requests, seeking safety from disapproving families and threats to life.

However, Love Commandos isn’t an ode to Sachdev. It is, in fact, a tale of fraud, a story about those who weaponise fear and those who find ways to persist.

It isn’t the first time Sachdev has been accused of defrauding the couples he claims to shelter. In 2018, the police knocked on the doors of one of the shelter houses — Sachdev’s base camp — in Delhi’s Paharganj, accusing him of extorting money from young couples and confining and threatening them. It is, however, for the first time we get a thorough look inside the shelter homes that are cut off from the rest of the world, so much so that its occupants say they “forgot how sunlight felt”.

The gripping five-part series documents these stories — of a man who claims to be on a mission to ‘serve mankind’, those who once took shelter under his wings, and an investigative journalist, who followed the money trail.

The podcast begins with a closer look at India’s young lovers and how society guides and alters their love. With interspersed Bollywood dialogues from the 90s, it examines just how India’s cinema informs society. But we soon find that the “star-crossed lovers” who could transgress boundaries in Bollywood films often don’t meet the same ‘happy ending’ in real life.

In episode two, Akanksha, one of the women who stayed at the shelter, reminds the listeners, “Love is a beautiful feeling”. Though most of the podcast serves as a precautionary tale of just how messy the pursuit of this feeling can get, it also ultimately reinforces the fact that love can conquer all.

‘Love Commandos’ saves itself from being a run-of-the-mill ‘outsider-looking-inside’ story. There are moments when host Gregory Warren or journalist Lauren Frayer feel the need to seek context — whether it’s the peculiarity of a Hindi slogan or the Indian practice of pressing an elder’s feet. This is where Mansi Choksi steps in. She’s a journalist, who grew up in India and shares a childhood that many of us had, which helps fill the cultural gap.

“Growing up in the ’90s in India… we were the young people that were going to change the way the world works and thinks, and we could do anything,” she tells Warren.

Choksi’s fascination with Sachdev began with the episode of Satyamev Jayate when she thought his rallying cry for love beyond boundaries was “radical” for the time. But it ends with some sinister doubts about him.

Frayer, who has been investigating Sachdev and his Love Commandos since 2018, sums it up: “I have no idea whether anything he tells me is ever true. Like, this is the thing about him – is that he is either the most earnest person in the world or a pathological liar.”

Sachdev has called all the allegations “false” and claims there is a “political conspiracy” against him. The case is currently under trial in court. Frayer, however, has met couples who hold their ‘baba’ — as Sachdev would like to be addressed — in high regard, and others who speak of ill-treatment, threats, discrimination, and extortion.

What makes Love Commandos compelling are the recorded phone calls between Sachdev and Frayer, a snippet of his conversation with Choksi, and the questions he leaves unanswered.

The podcast retains the subjects’ narration in their mother tongue, lending authenticity to their voices. Perhaps the best example of this is a young man’s assurance to his lover: “Wait karna hum aayenge zaroor, jo bhi hoga wait karna (Wait for me, no matter what happens, I will surely come for you)”. A promise we now know he kept. The interpreters, meanwhile, keep the story flowing seamlessly.

The first four episodes of ‘Love Commandos’ are already out and available across platforms, while the fifth episode will be released on August 23.