The stars haven’t aligned: Farhan Akhtar opens up on ‘Jee Le Zaraa’ delay and ‘Dabba Cartel’ 

FILE: Farhan Akhtar at the Bangalore Literature Festival in Bengaluru on December 04, 2022.
| Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K

In Netflix’s new crime comedy series Dabba Cartel, produced by Farhan Akhtar and co-created by Shibani Akhtar, a gang of women eking out their lives in Thane cook up a storm: running a clandestine drug operation under the guise of a food-delivery business. Veteran actor Shabana Azmi plays the formidable captain of the ship, a middle-class Griselda of few words, wielding silence like a blade. The series has been directed by Hitesh Bhatia (Sharmaji Namkeen) and begins streaming on Netflix on February 28.

The Hindu spoke to Farhan, Shibani, Bhatia and Netflix India boss Monika Shergill on the multiple levels of Dabba Cartel. Farhan also dropped an update on his long-mooted directorial Jee Le Zaraa, a road movie with Alia Bhatt, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Katrina Kaif. Excerpts from a conversation…

Shabana Azmi joked at the trailer launch that this was effectively a home operation, and she was in no position to turn down the script. Was it really that simple?

Shibani Akhtar: It was a five-minute conversation on Zoom. I don’t think she was even listening to the pitch (laughs). During the lockdown, I had told Javed (Akhtar) uncle and Shabana that I was working on this series, and Javed uncle had suggested that we cast Shabana. He had no inkling that she was someone we already wanted.

I know a lot of people will assume I cast her because she is my mother-in-law. But it wasn’t like that. When I was younger and growing up in Australia, my only connection to Indian cinema was through a video cassette of Masoom (1983). I have watched that film 400-500 times. So I always wanted to work with her.

Farhan Akhtar: During the early days, we had a whiteboard that just read ‘Dabba Cartel’ and ‘Shabana Azmi’. Once, when the cops came over and they saw the board, we had a lot of explaining to do (laughs). We told them this is just a series.

Jyothika, Anjali Anand, Shalini Pandey, Shabana Azmi, and Nimisha Sajayan in ‘Dabba Cartel’
| Photo Credit:
Anu Pattnaik/Netflix

Her character in the series, Sheila, is a fascinating woman with a past. It is the sort of fun, front-footed role that veterans like her deserve more often.

Farhan: Shabana is a fantastic performer, and it’s heartening to see actors who are at that level in their career getting to do such meaty and weighty roles. She is not relegated to playing just the mother or the kindly neighbour with three scenes. And I genuinely feel OTT platforms have had a huge role to play in this. Hopefully, this will translate into films. If someone loves Shabana in Dabba Cartel, there is no reason to not cast her in a feature film of this scale.

Middle-class, Maharashtrian Thane is a funny, counterintuitive setting for a cartel show. How crucial was the world to narrative?

Monika Shergill: Our show is about everyday people unexpectedly thrown into a crime world. At the centre of it is a mother-in-law running a gang. But you have to see them as busy, ordinary citizens. They are hurtled from crisis to crisis with little time to think. Our excitement was to mix the real with the exaggerated. It came after a lot of brainstorming and fighting and cracking the right tone.

Who was the most difficult character to cast?

Shibani: Pathak, a drug inspector played by Gajraj Rao, was very different on page. He was supposed to be younger and have a more buoyant personality. But once Gajraj came on board, we changed it around. He brought his own quirk to the part.

Hitesh: Raji, Shabana’s daughter-in-law in the series, was another challenging character to cast. It needed a lot of vulnerability and innocence and yet was someone who is always game. There were multiple rounds of auditions and debates. Eventually, it was Shalini Panday’s audition that convinced us.

Farhan: The level of acting in general has become really high today. Bad performances are becoming very rare now. Earlier, they were all too common. I saw Black Warrant recently on Netflix and I really loved the performances, especially of Anurag Thakur and Rahul Bhatt. And that’s just one such show among many.

Gajraj Rao in ‘Dabba Cartel’
| Photo Credit:
Anu Pattnaik/Netflix

Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, has said that he now wants to write ‘good’ characters who inspire people. The current TV landscape, he feels, is cluttered with charismatic criminals. Was it important for you guys to give moral underpinnings to the characters in Dabba Cartel?

Shibani: Yes, because this is not about women who are from the world of crime. There is a layering of emotions, motivations and compulsions behind their choices. At every step, they are asking: is this the only choice I have? We want you to root for these women and see them come out on the other side. They are not doing good things, but we are still with them. That’s always a hard story to tell.

Farhan: In all honesty, no matter what we write and say, fiction will never match up to fact. There are things I read in the news and wonder, ‘If I make a film with this scene, nobody will believe it.’ Nothing at my company, Excel Entertainment, is done for sensationalism or to be disruptive for the sake of it. It’s always about telling an engaging story and extracting a human response, whether it’s empathy or understanding or repulsion.

Hitesh: The more nuanced or complex a character is, the better it aids the storytelling process. 

Farhan, your directorial, Jee Le Zaraa, a road trip film featuring Alia Bhatt, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Katrina Kaif, was delayed because of scheduling issues. Have the stars finally aligned?

Farhan: Haha, nice pun! No, no, they haven’t yet. The astronomy of it is all messed up: my rahu is in my ketu (laughs). Unfortunately, it will take more time. I am optimistic that it will happen when it has to happen. There is a time for everything. I don’t want to stress out over this one project. I have other things to do (like Don 3 with Ranveer Singh).

On that note, when you made your debut film, Dil Chahta Hai, you kept making improvements to it because Aamir Khan wouldn’t give the go-ahead. Is something similar happening to Jee Le Zaraa?

Farhan: I have learned from that experience. I have put this file aside. I will go back to it when the time is right and dust it off and get going.