A chartered accountant in government service piles up unmanageable debt. Noida native Tribhuvan (Manav Kaul) is compelled to put the bedroom prowess that delights his wife Ashoklata (Naina Sareen) to profitable use: he becomes a sex worker.
This Beau Du Jour who operates under the fake name CA Topper turns out to have a knack for his side hustle. Women queue up for a good time that always includes emotional comfort. Among them is Bindi (Tillotama Shome), the wife of the criminal Raja Bhaiya (Shubhrajyoti Barat).
The paths of Tribhuvan, Bindi, Raja and Raja’s henchmen Lappu (Amarjeet Singh) and Dhaincha (Ashok Pathak) eventually cross with police officers Haider (Faisal Mallik) and Mathew (Sunil Saraswat). The Sherlock-Watson pairing, apart from representing the entirety of Noida’s law enforcement, are sharper than they look. Deception – of appearance or intent – undergirds the new adults-only show from Mirzapur co-creator Puneet Krishna.
The Netflix series Tribhuvan Mishra: CA Topper, which Krishna has co-directed with Amrit Raj Gupta, has a minor army of characters claiming to be one thing and turning out to be something else. Apart from the cash-strapped Tribhuvan, his brother-in-law Shambhu (Sumit Gulati) and Shambu’s seemingly demure wife Shobha (Shweta Basu Prasad) too are compelled to get inventive to generate income. Noida has never seen anything like it.
Over nine episodes, we follow a fantasy about sex work as a path to personal empowerment as well as its more believable consequences. The conceit is sold through a hyper-real aesthetic. Tackiness, in conduct or in the staging, is par for the course.
Tribhuvan’s misadventures unfolds amidst lurid sets. Skewed camera angles add to the off-kilter feeling that comes from following a man who remains undetected despite having his professional moniker soldered into his nameplate.
If honesty is ignored, so is subtlety. Characters swear copiously as they brandish guns and grievances. So many weapons are waved about, you are thankful for Indian gun control laws. Matters come to a head in the only way it can in a show with a well-stocked armoury: as a blazing shootout straight out of a Western.
Tribhuvan Mishra: CA Topper is flippant, bawdy, at times sharp and hilarious, but also severely overstretched. The show’s makers are far too busy dreaming up minor anarchies to hurry up with the necessary connections between parallel sub-plots.
The show’s outcome depends greatly on warmly observed characters and enthusiastic actors. Manav Kaul leads from the front as the accountant whose homely studliness is hiding in plain sight. Without overdoing anything, Kaul superbly conveys an arc that runs from mousy fear to chest-thumping bravado. Tribhuvan’s transformation into the archetypal Hindi film hero inspires one of the show’s funniest scenes.
Tillotama Shome and Shubhrajyoti Barat gamely play an unlikely couple locked in a deadly embrace. Ashok Pathak is memorable as Dhaincha, the sidekick with a heart-warming back story. Streaming’s resident teddy bear Faisal Malik turns on the charm, lining an ample waistline with samosas and making sure to stay out of the way when the guns go off.
Also read:
‘Tribhuvan Mishra: CA Topper’: A show about ‘being heard and being seen’
Manav Kaul interview: ‘I am 98 per cent a writer, the remaining two per cent, everything else’
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