top of page
Writer's pictureNeel Deshpande

"EK Thi Begum " - beyond a Women-Centric Drama

Ashraf aka Sapna, the loving wife of Zaheer - a once confidante of Maqsood, the underworld don, but now arch-rival.


Yes starts the starting point of this series.


Most important it's really hard to come out of the shell of gangster movies or series by Ram Gopal Varma, Sanjay Gupta and Anurag Kashyap, but this series marked her presence




Why we can't accept that Films or web series can be Women-centric, in all genres? Well, talking about "EK Thi Begum ", a complete women-centric web series, which is ruling over the terrorist world. A mind-blowing, fantastic performance by Anuja Sathe. Both seasons show the struggle of Ashraf Bhatkar aka Anuja, to reach Maksood, a Dubai-based international terrorist, who planned to kill her husband, Zaaher Bhatkar aka Ankit Mohan.


Well, starting from Season 1, getting to know about Zaaher's business after his death, his relations with political leaders, gangs, drugs and other people related to the gang, she decided to kill everyone including Maksood who was involved in the murder of her husband. By disguising herself, as a bar dancer Sapna, she gets rid of Sawtya aka Santosh Juvekar and parallelly Inspec. Tawde aka Abhijit Chavan, who was the prime suspect involved in the murder of Zaaher Bhatkar, killed Sawtya very cleverly and plans to get rid of Tawde too. Nana Mhatre, Bhau Chavan, fights seem to be very ruthless, making the series more thrilling to watch. The first season shows the process of revenge mind of Ashraf and controlling Zaaher's business of drugs too.


Director and Writer Sachin Darekar, have fantastically written, and the dialogues are at their best. Every role has a lot of work to do. Every role includes supporting characters who have given their best to make the series go to par excellence. The actions scenes are well-shooted. Ashraf's pain, while making every deal and murder planning displays love towards her husband and her intentions strongly affected the people, who didn't know that she is Zaheer Bhatkar's wife. She also succeeds to put a fight between two gangs, so that gangs can end each other, and she can be safe from everyone, but somehow it didn't happen quite well. There is a saying, "If a woman decides to do anything for her family she can do anything to protect, and the first season shows it truly.




As the first season ends we see Maksood succeed to flee away and Ashraf who played the role of Sapna gets badly injured nearly dead, but her well-wisher Inspec. Vikram aka Chinmay Mandlekar didn't lose hope in saving her and she too got saved from that attack. Chinmay's character is very strong and pure. He wants to live a simple life with Zarheen, and so they get married. The plotting and planning don'tstop here. She gets more serious about reaching Maksood and killing him.


As Leela, she enters the Maksood's world and gets back up by Ashwin Surve, who is now the leading Gunda in the city and has the support of state's Cheif minister Yashwantrao Patil played by Sandeep Mehta. Apart from Surve, Shakeel Ansari enters the game and thinks to control all the things to make Maksood happy. The Himachal Pradesh scenes are the sparkling beauty of the acting of Anuja Sathe. This season contains many crime drama elements such as the clash of egos, backstabbing, double-crossing, political meddling in police affairs and the nexus between the underworld and politics. Getting out of by one by one, she finally faces Maksood.


Roles played by Lokesh Gupte aka ACP Qureshi make things difficult for Inspe. proceeding as he thinks Inspc. Vikram supports his wife. The political pressure, the politics in every incident taking place related to Ashraf make her stuck to not proceed, but she does not lose hope and continues to take revenge in every possible way.


She finally tries to kill Maksood, but instead, she gets killed. The screenplay keeps us engaged in the series.


This is one of the unique gangster entertainers that had a female protagonist.


At the verse of season 2 . It was apparent that the director duo of Sachin Darekar and Vishal Vimal Modhave had done their homework and it showed right till the climax


Overall, a crime-suspense thriller MX-player makes a strong rule overall series. With an IDMB rating of 9.4/10




Do follow me on Instagram at I'm on Instagram as @neel.deshpande. Install the app to follow my photos and videos. https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=4e5rdyh30e99&utm_content=nc2or08

Comments


bottom of page