Taj Mahal 1989: Tribute to a bygone era

A lot has changed since the late 1980s. You know it. I know it. So does writer-director Pushpendra Nath Misra, whose Netflix offering Taj Mahal 1989 set in Lucknow takes us through the streets of the city as it once was.

Soaked in nostalgia and consisting of seven crisply edited episodes, the series starring a mix of seasoned and fresh actors deals with themes like university politics, campus goondaism and varied manifestations of romance. Each subplot is a brush that paints part of the portrait of a city that has mutated with time, and yet, has many recognizable qualities that live on until today.

The maker shows predictable tropes such as Rasna’s advertisement, heating rod and Camel geometry box to remind the viewer that the series is rooted in the 1980s. Thankfully, however, his focus is on the interwoven subplots mostly peopled by middle-class characters that take the series forward.

In Misra’s Lucknow, we have a teacher couple, one of whom is a pragmatic film-loving professor of physics (Geetanjali Kulkarni) and the other an idealistic Shayari-loving professor of philosophy (Neeraj Kabi). Theirs is an inter-religious marriage from which fun and love have withered away.

An attempt to rekindle their romance would eventually take them to the Taj Mahal, the grand medieval symbol of eternal love. Kulkarni and Kabi are fantastic as husband and wife in the well-scripted subplot that holds the series together.

Another watchable story stars Danish Hussain as a university topper who has chosen the profession of a tailor. He is leading a contented life with his partner (Sheeba Chaddha), who was a sex worker when he had met her. Now, she is a vegetable seller, who makes no effort to conceal her past, is proud of her new profession, and is incorrigibly foul-mouthed.

The story of two unusual individuals dealing with social obstacles while being in an unusual relationship would have been difficult to write. The good news is, Misra has treated the plot with the kind of sensitivity it deserves, making us watch each moment when the two characters are on the screen.

In a series with an ensemble cast, characters need to be interesting in diverse ways to keep the viewer interested. Faced with this challenge, Misra in the avatar of the writer isn’t entirely successful.

Shirin Sewani's young communist leader is a half-baked character, while Raj Singh's character of the corrupt neta is unimpressively stereotypical. Paras Priyadarshan's character of the candidate supported by the politician is well-written though, and so is Anshul Chauhan's character of his girlfriend who is let down by her lover.

Unpretentious and progressive, Taj Mahal 1989 packages interesting stories about ordinary lives in old-fashioned times before technology took over and the omnipresent Internet, among other things, transformed the urban Indian middle class. Watch it if you can. You will be satisfied, particularly if you were born in the 1970s or earlier.