Produced by – Studio Next/Emmay Entertainment
Created by – Nikkhil Advani
Cast – Chirag Vohra, Sidhant Gupta, Rajendra Chawla, Luke McGibney, Cordelia Bugeja, Arif Zakaria etc.
Genre – Historical Drama
Streaming Partner – Sony LIV
Rating – ***1/2
Adapted from the book by the same name by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, this is a gripping historical drama helmed by Nikkhil Advani known for his commercial potboilers at Bollywood.
The television series has 7 episodes, the streaming commenced on November 15th 2024!
While historians, authors, filmmakers etc have taken liberties while discussing and deliberating on the situation that prevailed in the country just prior to the declaration of the country’s independence, the decision of the historians, readers and viewers stood out as the decision-factor as far the final verdict was concerned.
Here again, the setting of the stage when the ruling Britishers decided to grant liberty to the Nation, the mindset of the Leaders then, especially, Gandhi, Negru, Sardar Patel etc, the devisive attitude of the Muslim League led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the others in that team – have all been described in detail in this series and the interpretation of the historical facts too has been convincingly communicated.
We have seen several actors don the garb of tall order leaders as Gandhi, Nehru etc. Here, as a new set of actors have been cast in those characters, it takes a while to accept them as the characters they portray but soon we settle down!
As the episodes unfold, we too delve deep into the proceedings and director transports us all to that era!
While attempting to pack in several pages of an authored book into a seven episode series, there ought to be hits and misses but it would only be fair to say that Nikkhil Advani has by and large done the balancing act tactfully without much of ommisions commissions.
The series manages to hold our attention throughout without bring offensive and that is exactly the USP of this series. The scenes showcasing the discussions and deliberations regarding the country’s Partition, definitely deserve mention.