Modern Love: Hyderabad series, this heartening nod to old-world charm works more than it doesn’t

Express News Service

There is something alluring about Hyderabad for an outsider like me. Is it the shared silence amid the din of a bustling metropolitan city? Is the fragrance of food so unique to the city of pearls? Is it the fascinating dialect that is mostly Telugu but has a flavouring of Hindi and Urdu? Or is it the awkward warm embrace from a city that is both welcoming and distant at the same time? After successful stints in New York and Mumbai, the Modern Love bandwagon makes its next pitstop in the city of Hyderabad and brings with it six stories that deal with the various shades of love.

It is impressive that the makers don’t go with regular shots of Charminar to establish Hyderabad but explore the city deeper. We see the Buddha statue at Hussain Sagar Lake. A Jandhyala film festival becomes an important plot point, and there’s some coverage of the standup comedy culture in the city as well. Muslim characters get involved in the narrative without getting relegated to tokenistic roles.

The series looks into the city’s rich food heritage and implores us to look past the biryani. However, barring a few scenes in the shorts, Why did you leave me here? and My unlikely pandemic dream partner (both by Nagesh Kukunoor), Modern Love: Hyderabad is largely set in the upmarket part of the city that seems to scream Jubilee Hills and Banjara Hills from every frame onscreen. The lack of diversity in the setting paints a rather one-note picture of romance in Hyderabad. The stories don’t seem locally sourced, and the titles too are… well, a bit too English for a Telugu series.

The series starts off with its strongest chapter, My unlikely pandemic dream partner and unlike its convoluted title, the short is rather straightforward. An estranged mother Mehrunnisa (Revathy) and daughter Noori (Nithya Menen) find solace in each other’s company after they are forced to spend time with each other during the lockdown.

Female solidarity, in fact, is a recurring theme in Modern Love: Hyderabad, and it is a refreshing change to see female protagonists turn to their girlfriends to find ways to get out of sticky situations. We see this happen between Renu (Ritu Varma) and her friend Nazneen in Fuzzy, purple, and full of thorns (directed again by Nagesh Kukunoor). This angle is even more pronounced in the shorts — About that rustle in the bushes (Devika Bahudhanam) and Finding your penguin (Venkatesh Maha) — where the largely male ideas of chugging down drinks and sharing problems are done by strong, independent women who have each other’s backs. These are some of the best scenes of the series.

It is impressive how the mother-daughter equation in My unlikely pandemic dream partner never gets into a saccharine zone despite unending shots of Qubani ka Meetha and Ande ke Lauz. The strong performances of Revathy and Nithya rein it all in to keep the engagement factor pretty high. Take, for instance, the scene where Revathy asks Nithya to leave the kitchen because she wants to spend time in memory of her dead husband while making his favourite Haleem. It is a warm but necessary reference to show that her character is as much a wife as she is a mother. Such nifty touches are peppered throughout the series.

The shorts are perhaps simplistic, but the narrative choices separate the wheat from chaff. Both Finding my penguin and About the rustle in the bushes are about a girl, with a past, sifting through men to find a soulmate of sorts. However, while the former scores high, the latter is rather conventional. Across the shorts, the levity ensures that Modern Love: Hyderabad stands apart from some similar entrants in the Telugu series space. Komalee Prasad and Ritu Varma are the show-stealers with their comedic turns in Finding your penguin and Fuzzy, purple, and full of thorns, which have them play around with the fourth wall and imaginary worlds.

The men in this series largely play second fiddle, and their actions are largely questionable. And yet, the writing convinces even when Aadhi Pinisetty’s Uday fails to do a simple task that Ritu’s Neha asks of him, we can see that in his head, he is right. This can be said of all the characters in the series, including Abhijeet Duddala’s role as a show producer from What clown wrote this script (directed by Uday Gurrala).

While the roles of Naresh Babu (About the rustle in the bushes) and Naresh Agastya (Why did you leave me here?) are largely one-note, both actors deliver compelling performances. Incidentally, the shorts of these two actors are weaker additions to this series.

Through these six shorts, creator Nagesh Kukunoor seems to ask a simple question… What is love? Is it about letting go? Is it about being at the right place at the right time? Is it about second chances? Is it about trusting one’s instinct? The answers lie amidst the pillars of the Charminar, the stillness of the Hussain Sagar lake, the zesty punch of Hyderabadi biryani, the fragrance of freshly ground coffee, and most importantly, within each of us whose heart yearns to beat for someone else.

Modern Love: Hyderabad Series

Cast:  Revathy, Nithya Menen, Ritu Varma, Aadhi Pinisetty, Malavika Nair, Suhasini Mani Ratnam, Komalee Prasad, Naresh Babu
Director:  Nagesh Kukunoor, Uday Gurrala, Devika Bahudhanam, Venkatesh Maha