After seeing the promo of the new &TV show, Bitti Businesswali, we expected to see a different show, about a girl taking on the unusual mantle of selling pan as a means of earning financial dignity.
However, the first two weeks have just been like any other normal daily soap.
Enter good girl Sapna aka Bitti (Prakruti Mishra), who takes care of her family. The only link to business came in the first episode, when she dreamt of getting her first salary.
As usual, Bitti has a big family, complete with dad (Ali Raza Namdar), dadi (Pratima Kannan), 2 sets of bhaiya-bhabhi, and younger siblings. The scene where Bitti, along with younger siblings, croons a song at 5 am, without earning the ire of the family and neighbors, was surreal.
Prakruti, last seen in Jai Kanhaiya Lal Ki and a noted face in Odiya movies, is doing a good job of representing the modern Indian girl who wants a say in the family affairs, within traditional structures. Her father wants her to go the arranged marriage route, but leaves the final nod to her. She turns down a non-chivalrous match.
Middle brother, Virendra (Waseem Mushtaq), is the villain of the piece. The scene, where his wife dances for him wearing an interestingly cut sari’s blouse, would appeal to many middle class couples, but, shouldn’t they close the door, lest someone peeks in, as Bitti also did?
Elder bhabhi, played by Preeti Mehra, is the comic, albeit good-hearted, dunce in the house. She picks her husband’s (Tarul Swami) pocket to pay for their daughter’s school fees, and is hauled over the coals for it, yet has a smile on her face.
Lead guy, Maahi (Abhishek Bajaj), is the son of the local strong man. He prefers tact, rather than brute strength, to get his way. He flips for Bitti, and even roughens up the college principal, when Bitti is falsely charged with copying in the exams at Virendra’s behest.
Virendra again asks second prospective groom Abhishek (Karan Sharma) to act as if he is trying to help her seek the help of the VC in the above cheating case i.e. the anshan stunt. He even promises to let her work post-marriage.
Maahi too has quite a huge family. In a bid to raise tensions, they might show that his father had a thing with Bitti’s dadi before marriage. His dad is a very normal man, who tells his son to have fun but only marry with family approval. Maahi takes inspiration from his dad that you can’t wait in love, and proposes to Bitti despite knowing that she is engaged to Abhishek.
Since eventually Bitti will get married to the ultra-rich Mahi, we wonder why she jettisons her dreams of becoming a teacher and opts to become a paanwali. We could think of several other small shop options, but why paan? Guess Producer Raakesh Paswan will be in a better position to answer.
Maahi’s married elder brother, Kashi, is having an affair with a bong kothewali, who breaks into song for him. So expect lots of drama, with Bitti stepping up to the plate here as well. Poor thing, has much to do– run the paan shop and also fire-fight at home.
Maahi’s best friend’s name is SMS, who takes a lot of flak when he refuses to divulge details when Maahi takes off on seeing Bitti getting e ngaged to someone else.
Raakesh Paswan as the Writer and Producer has the uncanny knack of showing very relatable tales and characters. We look forward for his pen to do the trick here. As of now, the show has had a very normal start, there’s nothing which is unique in the plot, except the fact that we know Bitti will go on to have a pan shop. We look forward to the professional track to start. We hope it brings in the freshness. Guess, even then, family will still hold sway, given the audience profile.
India lives in two completely different worlds; recent film, Veere Di Wedding, espouses aggressive female characters, who don’t mind smoking and drinking, which is poles apart from TV leads. Whenever TV shows have tried to show more liberated women characters, they have come unstuck. No wonder, they stick to the tried and tested. But even there, many me-too shows have also tanked. You need a story that not only speaks the language of the family audience, but also has emotional quotient.
Let’s wait to see what Bitti Businesswali has to offer in the time to come!!
We at IWMBuzz.com give the show a 2.5 out of 5 stars.
