​It is very brave of Neena Gupta and Masaba Gupta to film the intimate parts of the highs and lows of their lives for this 6 Episode series in Ashvini Yardi’s Masaba Masaba now streaming on @netflix

The show that traces the life of Masaba and her relationship with her mom – the super sexy liberated women icon of our childhood – Neena Gupta, who never seems to grow old or dated.

For those who are not aware, Neena Gupta has been one of the boldest and the a total badass women in the history of Indian cinema. Neena Gupta dated former West Indies cricketer Vivian Richards in the Eighties when she had only started her Bollywood journey. Masaba was born to Neena Gupta and Viv Richards in 1989. Neena did not marry Sir Vivian Richards and remained the badass who cared two F’s about what the whole world said or thought of her.

The show tees off with her divorce from husband Madhu Mantena.

The series captures the struggles of Neena Gupta before she started her second innings in Bollywood with Badhaai Ho. She is just so naturally a superstar that we wish there was more of her in the show.

The dauntless mom and daughter live life on her own terms. Neena Gupta has forever been the woman who has lived her life fully with zero regrets.

However the dynamics of her relationship with her daughter are apparently a lot more complicated.

Chronicling her life in her insta stories, Masaba tries to live a life of her own battling the sheer misogyny of the society toward a single woman , or a single & celebrity woman in need of her basic independence.

And in parallel , the struggle of her mother , almost 60 of age, a national award winner , a beautiful and talented actress who is trying to make a comeback against sexism and ageism by reminding the world in her insta feed that she still exists!

The two parallel stories have a feel of wannabe something but not able to hit the right note. The narrative is slick yet the “voice in the head” in the slower scenes make lesser impact !

It is poignant that a series unfolding on the peripheries of the celebrity lives of Bollywood has the actual intensity of a Page 5 spoiler. The story on the paper may have been interesting but the execution on canvas is a little wanting.

The effortless ambiance of a idealistic humor based story is deceivingly complicated to narrate. The story line style is of the insta generation which counts timing, tempo, dynamism and indulgence to. The point is that Masaba Masaba attempts to be trendy, lit, cool and funny a bit too hard but ends up being clumsy.  Neena Gupta looks the most natural on celluloid and the cameos are a misfit & seem artificially plugged in.

The first episode is based on a blind item of Masaba’s crumbling marriage is so not paired with the quality of plots currently in 2020. I mean, not as scandalous. There are other sub-plots which just seem so plugged in to exhibit coolness which is so 90’s – like the housewarming gift of a vibrator, or friends walking in with beer in the middle of the day, hook up sex at the behest of instaposts. I mean, we get you – you are cool and happening and this is your life but upgrade the script to meet the expectation of “cool” as we see it today.

The nicer, more inspiring parts of the show are just about Neena Gupta.  The parallel track has Neena Gupta performing her own little authentic scene not only as an domineering mother with her nose in her daughter’s business, but also as a 60-year-old actress striving to make her comeback to the screen in a male-dominated industry, while dealing with ageism.

If you follow her on Instagram, you will see her post asking for work go viral – this is documented in the movie but this did land for her priceless hip-hop video (“Aunty kisko bola re?”) with digital star Mithila Palkar, and then a co-lead with Gajraj Rao (the only cameo that matters) in Badhaai Ho which leaves us thinking if a series on her life alone could have made more sense.

Women battle social judgement their entire lives, yet Masaba’s point of view is that her overbearing mother’s choices in life have overshadowed her own decisions as her mother kept her daughter from making her own choices.

Interesting fare, nevertheless.