Shodha claims to be based on a play titled Catch Me If You Can – the first of many lies uttered during the six-episode series on ZEE5.
Sunil Mysuru’s Kannada show, written by Suhas Navarathna, stars acclaimed director Pawan Kumar as Rohit, a hotshot lawyer from Madikeri in Karnataka’s Kodagu district. Rohit approaches police inspector Bhairava (Arun Sagar) after his wife Meera (Siri Ravikumar) goes missing.
Meera turns up, but it’s now Rohit’s turn to be lost. Following a car accident, Rohit declares that the woman who says that she is my wife and the mother of our child Tara (Diya Hegde) is lying.
Meera and her sister Aditi (Anusha Ranganath) are flummoxed, while Bhairava is plain annoyed. Having already developed a distaste for Rohit, Bhairava finds himself the unwilling recipient of Rohit’s paranoia-laced complaints about “that woman in the house” who’s a liar and possible fraudster.
The mystery behind the actual source of the show, and the air itself, clears up by episode three – not because of any sleuthing by sharp viewers with long memories, but because a key character spills the beans. From then on, the only question is whether the makers will play the sympathy-for-the-devil card or actually pursue justice.
For the viewer who searched for “Catch Me If You Can” and was directed to the Steven Spielberg movie about something else altogether, Shodha (Quest) is adequate snacking content. The episodes run at roughly 20 minutes each. A skeletal cast – Rohit doesn’t have a single friend despite his professional reputation – and an eye on the clock keep Shodha on the treadmill.
The acting is as serviceable as the plotting. Pawan Kumar as the instantly unlikeable Rohit, Arun Sagar as the dogged cop, and Siri Ravikumar as the beleaguered Meera stand out – which isn’t too difficult, given how slim the cast is.
A flashback to Kodagu folklore from 1792 might make the most sense to local viewers. If anything, this parallel period track stretches out the revelation of who’s obfuscating and why.
Like some of the short-duration ZEE5 shows in recent times, Shodha feels like a movie chopped up into instalments. This device strings out the suspense a bit longer and helps savour the twists that start piling up in later episodes.
The biggest spoiler is that there isn’t a spoiler, except that the show’s makers do a decent job but could have tried harder.
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