What Is the Story About?
Unpaused: Naya Safar is a 5-part anthology series set in various parts of India, during the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. This Amazon Prime original good web series shows us how various people were affected during this lockdown – from normal, everyday working citizens to essential workers. Everyone has a story and we are given a small glimpse into theirs.
Performances?
While Unpaused: Naya Safar has many problems, acting isn’t one among them. The leads in all five short stories deserve a mention and they are going to get one, below:
Shreya Dhanwanthary and Priyanshu Painyuli portray a very convincing couple in the first story, while Geetanjali Kulkarni excellently portrays a grieving mother faced with a moral dilemma (in the second story). Saqib Saleem, Sam Mohan and Ashish Verma show us good chemistry as a trio of thieves (in the third story), while Neena Kulkarni, Darshana Rajendran and Lakshvir Saran are relatable in the fourth story with their onscreen interactions being quite endearing. However, Nagraj Manjule’s understated portrayal of a single father who works as a service worker at the crematorium is probably the best character performance from all five stories.
Analysis
Unpaused: Naya Safar, similar to the anthology film, Unpaused, which the series spun off from, brings together a group of directors to share their stories about hope, love and connections during the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. While the premises of the five stories are inherently good, most of them are executed poorly.
The first episode focuses on a young married couple, Akriti and Dippy. Both of them are currently working from home and do well for themselves. However, due to the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Akriti is laid off from work. And the rest of the episode deals with the aftermath of all that. Dippy tries to console Akriti, but after losing her job, she feels that her status in the relationship has gone down. Dippy is not doing anything to make things better, by flaunting the fact that he is the only breadwinner in the household (which he doesn’t mean to do, he says it to his colleagues to get their work completed faster). All of this is rational, including Akriti’s blowout on Dippy. However, that blowout turns into a fully-fledged rant that quickly goes off topic. Instead of talking about how Akriti feels after she lost her job, the rant becomes a preachy speech about how women are being dismissed from their jobs during the pandemic. While this issue is important, this has nothing to do with Akriti’s character though. Even if by some chance it does, she is giving the speech to the wrong person. Also her firing does seem quite fishy and she should be filing a case against her company, especially since she got fired after delivering them a product that their company needed (which also seems to be in line with Akriti’s character, from what we can understand). So the plot has minor problems there. Also, after going through the remainder of the series, this story feels quite underwhelming to be honest, especially when compared to stories from the second and fifth episodes.
The second episode is shown from the point of view of a math teacher, Sangeeta Waghmare. She and other teachers like her are working hard in the Covid-19 war-room, listening to calls for emergencies and forwarding them to hospitals, emergency wards, etc. as is needed. One day, she gets a call saying that a man named Soman Rao Shastri has tested Covid positive and he needs to be hospitalized as soon as possible. She hears the name in shock and then cuts the call. It turns out that this man was the Principal of a school where her son, Uday studied and he denied Uday his scholarship. Uday then went on to commit suicide. This entire episode is about Sangeeta going through her moral dilemma. Geetanjali Kulkarni, who plays Sangeeta does a brilliant job. The third episode is about a trio of thieves who are stuck in a factory with products that they are unable to move because of the second wave of the coronavirus. With them forced to stay with each other for a long time, their personalities and egos clash as they attempt to pass the time together. The chemistry between all three actors is good; however, this episode is unnecessarily slow.
The fourth episode is the only episode which has three different protagonists at different points of the episode. We are first shown an older woman who recently became a grandmother, who tries to send ladoos to her daughter who gave birth a little while back. However, during the delivery process (of the sweets), the driver who is delivering the box of ladoos gets hit. His wife decides to help him by making the ladoos herself. The driver delivering the ladoos comes clean about the accident but the grandmother is happy that her daughter still gets homemade ladoos. While this episode is lighthearted – the only thing about this episode that is related to the Covid-19 is that the grandmother can’t travel; otherwise this episode does not match the overall pandemic theme of the series at all. The plot has a few issues as well. The driver getting hit by a car, head on, at that speed would normally be hospitalized – not walking away with just a scratch. Secondly, once a box gets damaged like the ladoo box did, he should be reporting the issue. We understand that he is trying to not get fired (the boss, himself is another huge plot hole himself), however, at that point he is averaging a 3-star rating. Even if he gets a 5-star rating, there is no way that the average will go up to 5 stars – that is not how math works. Which brings us to our third point, it doesn’t make any sense how the driver received a five-star average rating from a three-star average – with only one rating adding to his average. Fourthly, the fight between the husband and wife gets over too conveniently. Atleast, after saying something like that to his wife, it doesn’t make sense that she would want to help him immediately, especially since he didn’t want her help.
The fifth episode is by far the simplest out of the five stories. Vikas Chavan, a man working at the crematorium is forced to vacate his house with his son after his father tests positive for Covid. While most of the episode has little-to-no dialogue, it focuses primarily on the essential work done by Vikas. Eventually he, his son and his father reunite in the most dramatic fashion possible. This story has a surprisingly sweet ending and it is a story worth checking out. Nagraj Manjule portrays the main character and he does a brilliant job.
While, the premises of the five stories are decent, the final execution, the slow paced nature of all of the episodes and the final screenplays makes the series quite hard to watch. The music is almost forgettable, including the opening theme and the direction needs a lot more work. Most of these episodes could have easily had 10 minutes or more cut and it would have ended up being a better show all together.
Overall, Unpaused: Naya Safar is an anthology web series that needs a lot more work, particularly in the direction and screenwriting sections. While the premises of the stories are decent enough, most of the end products are not worth writing home about.
Other Artists?
Most of the short stories in this series focus on the lead characters only, with very few side characters shown on screen. Vikas’ son, Avinash is one such side character from the fifth story, who is portrayed by Arjun Karche. While he doesn’t have much to do onscreen, he does a good job whenever he makes an onscreen appearance. Sachin Kathuria portrays another such minor character, Mr. Verma, who gets around two minutes of screen time in the fourth story, but will remain prominent throughout the remainder of the episode.
Music and Other Departments?
As mentioned earlier, the music department needs work. While it is decent throughout the series, once the show is over, there is nothing from the soundtrack worth remembering or humming. The directors and screenwriters need to do better work as well. The cinematography throughout the series is really good, however.
Highlights?
Acting
The Five Premises
Drawbacks?
Unnecessarily Preachy In Places
Slowly Paced
The Fourth Story Doesn’t Match The Overall Theme
Did I Enjoy It?
It was okay.
Will You Recommend It?
A decent watch for those who love slow anthologies. Otherwise skip.
Unpaused: Naya Safar Review by Binged Bureau
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