An Jo on Khakee: The Bihar Chapter

KHAKEE: THE BIHAR DIARIES A wonderful series by the great Neeraj Pandey, not to be missed. Fantastic detailing and a superb cat & mouse game, avoiding the usual crutches of MC/BC just because it is based in Bihar. Karan Tacker is mostly wooden, his wife played by Tanu Datta is wonderful, but the scene-stealer is Avinash Tiwary’s Chandan Mahto, closely followed by the Narad Muni-esqe Ashutosh Rana who keeps switching loyalties as though he is switching rabris. [Tacker though, is physically remarkably near to the real Amit Lodha.]

As Mahto, Avinash rocks with his majestic physique playing the silent, oppressed lower-caste person caught up in Bihar’s caste politics of the late ’90s and early ’00s. His speeches, his talks are all subdued, but his actions, brutal. A fine, fine portrayal that will go down in history as one of the finest performances in a series. One also gets to know terms like ‘shunting’ a glorified word for rustication.

There are some loop-holes here in the plot, and hence, they don’t live upto Pandey’s earlier gems like BABY or SPECIAL 26. But still, this is a welcome chapter to his book. Do not miss it.