Amazon Prime series makes you fall in love with the city, all over again

Cast: Fatima Sana Shaikh, Chitrangada Singh, Arshad Warsi, Pratik Gandhi, Ranveer Brar, Masaba Gupta, Ritwik Bhowmik, Yeo Yann Yann, Meiyang Chang, Naseeruddin Shah, Wamiqa Gabbi, Bhupendra Jadawat, Dilip Prabhavalkar, Tanuja, Sarika, Danesh Razvi, Prateik Babbar, Aadar Malik, Dolly Singh

Director: Shonali Bose, Hansal Mehta, Vishal Bhardwaj, Alankrita Shrivastava, Dhruv Sehgal, Nupur Asthana

Rating: Three and a half stars (out of 5)

Mumbai, a city that never sleeps, a city that lets you dream, AND a city that lets you love, in a modern way. Now, we have all watched Modern Love on Amazon Prime Video. At least I am guessing most of us binge-watchers have. When Modern Love Mumbai was announced, it kind of confused many about how stories inspired by New York Times column of the same name would fit into the Indian milieu. But it does. And full marks to the writers, who have done a phenomenal job with this Mumbai edition.

Modern Love Mumbai consists of six stories that eventually amalgamate in the final episode. Alankrita Shrivastava’s My Beautiful Wrinkles, features veteran actress Sarika as Dilbar Sodhi. A woman, in her 60s, who is taken aback when a young man declares that he has a sexual interest in her. What's interesting is how Dilbar deals with the situation. Hansal Mehta's Baai tells the story of Manzu (Pratik Gandhi), a gay man in love with a chef (Ranveer Brar). He wants to come out to his ailing grandmother (Tanuja), who he loves a lot. Dhruv Sehgal's I Love Thane revolves around Saiba (Masaba Gupta) trying to find that perfect man from the abundant options on dating apps. But, what if the one she is looking for is not on any of the apps?

Modern Love Mumbai, even when a chapter has a man at its centre like the one helmed by Hansal Mehta (the title is Baai, and that says it all), is principally about women thirsting for fulfilment or struggling to grasp a second chance.

In Shrivastava's My Beautiful Wrinkles, written by the director herself, sexagenarian Dilbar Sodhi (Sarika) develops a bond with an introverted Kunal (Danesh Razvi), who finds job interviews exceedingly difficult to crack. The lady steps in to help him tide over the problem. The seemingly innocuous relationship takes a serious turn. It throws Dilbar off balance

The strength of this simple story stems from the lightness of the treatment. Sarika is perfectly cast. The actress has been acting since the late 1960s. Her pivotal presence in a new age interpretation of love that defies a yawning age difference is filled with possibilities. Sarika brings Dilbar alive in a quiet, confident, effortless manner.

Baai, directed by Hansal Mehta, guides love in a completely different direction - in fact in two different directions. One centres on a crooner Manzar Ali (Pratik Gandhi) whose sexual orientation precipitates an inevitable clash with his conservative parents (Talat Aziz and Mansi Joshi Roy) and pushes him towards Manhattan chef Rajveer (played by real-life chef Ranveer Brar in his first acting assignment).

The other is Manzar's deep, unalloyed love for his grandmother (Tanuja, an old-timer who has lost none of her charm), a woman famed as much for her courage in the face of adversity as for her exceptional culinary skills. Revealing his 'secret' to the woman who he dotes on is a challenge for Manzar. It forms the crux of Baai.

A gay love story embedded in a sensitive, eloquent portrait of a Muslim family in a nation that has suffered a violent Partition, and in a city that has seen terrible communal rioting in more recent times, Baai is embellished with some soulful songs, not the least of which is the delectable Kaisi baatein karte ho, composed by Jeet Gannguli and sung by Sonu Nigam.