Dupahiya 2 Review: Less Humour, More Mayhem

Dupahiya 2 offers a chaotic yet engaging follow-up to its first season, notes Deepa Gahlot.

 

The first season of Dupahiya had an amusing comic hook — the theft of a red motorcycle meant for a young woman’s dowry in a village that prides itself on being crime free for 25 years.

Dupahiya 2 returns to the fictional Dhadakpur in Bihar, (heavily inspired by Panchayat) — the same characters, suffering the aftermath of that incident, but with far less placidity, leading a character to lament that the peaceful Dhadakpur is turning into Mirzapur.

Dhadakpur’s Shifting Morals

In the last season, Roshni (Shivani Raghuvanshi) had challenged her arrogant groom Kuber (Avinash Dwivedi), before rejecting him, that she would pass the SSC exam and make it to Mumbai on her own steam.

Her Bollywood-obsessed brother, Bhugol (Sparsh Srivastava), by a strange set of circumstances, discovered his talent for ‘launda naach‘ (drag dancing) and wants to use the earnings to fund his trip to Mumbai.

Their hapless father, Banwari Jha (Gajraj Rao), lost his job when Roshni turned down Kuber, and the mother, Malti (Anjuman Saxena), is managing their reduced circumstances. Roshni’s friendzoned suitor Amavas (Bhuvan Arora) is around to help with his hangdog expression.

Roshni uttered those words in a rage, but she is, to use a politically incorrect word, a duffer, and the only hope of getting through the SSC exam is cheating. For this, she needs the well-oiled network of an unscrupulous coaching class owner, Pratham (Dinesh Lal Yadav), by paying Rs 2 lakh.

A spark of hope is lit when a patch of barren land owned by Banwari is picked for the construction of a mobile tower, by an executive of the phone company, Sheetal (Suryansh Mishra), who offers Rs 2 lakh for the space.

The villagers, swayed by WhatsApp forwards, believe that the tower will affect their manhood, and encouraged by Pushpalata (Renuka Shahane), they picket Banwari’s land. The money, acquired by fraudulent means, has been delivered to Pratham, so Banwari is in a fix.

Intrigue!!

Pushpalata’s dark-skinned daughter, Nirmal (Komal Kushwaha), snubs the puppy-like devotion of Teepu (Samarth Mahor), Bhugol’s loyal buddy, and starts a tentative flirtation with Sheetal, seen as the enemy of the village.

Instigated by Madan (Chandan Kumar), the reporter of the local rag, Khabar Falana, the pulp novel-reading cop Mithilesh (Yashpal Sharma) takes it upon himself to expose the exam scam, for which he is downgraded by his corrupt boss (Neeraj Sood).

The main players are placed in their assigned squares, and then Director Sonam Nair and Writers Chirag Garg and Avinash Dwivedi unleash the chaos, which is slightly less funny than Season One (a gangster obsessed with an owl called Dollar cannot be called upon again!).

There is also the entirely believable loss of integrity, in keeping with the times.

Roshni is willing to lie to her family to get the money for cheating; the otherwise upright Banwari indulges in all kinds of deceit to save the family from going under. Bhugol and Amavas go along with Roshni’s schemes.

Performances

The titular dupahiya (two-wheeler) does make an appearance eventually, when more mayhem needs to be added to the plot that has started to flag.

In a patriarchal society, where a demand for dowry is not even opposed, a dark-skinned woman is humiliated, and a female politician routinely disparaged, Roshni’s gumption — even when she is doing something unlawful — is admirable.

She lies to her father, strings along Amavas, and is willing to ‘honeytrap’ the despicable Kuber, to get what she wants.

The dialogue is sharp as before. ‘Yeh James Bondai humse nahin hoga,’ protests Amavas when he is dragged into a ‘mission’ and it is such a quirky phrase.

This time round, there are more contrivances, the feel-good factor is lowered, and the characters lose some of their sheen.

Sparsh Srivastava leads the efficient cast, with his quicksilver performance as the young man who has to balance his own ambition with the demands of his family.

Gajraj Rao, Renuka Shahane, Bhuvan Arora, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Dinesh Lal Yadav, and Yashpal Sharma fit right into their parts, lifting up the series through its soggy patches.

It ends with the hint of another season, when the Jha siblings have to face new problems.

Dupahiya 2 streams on Prime Video.

Dupahiya 2 Review Rediff Rating: