Cringe lives of Bollywood wives

Fabuous Lives of Bollywood Wives

Netflix

Director: Uttam Domale

Cast: Neelam Kothari, Maheep Kapoor, Bhavana Pandey, Seema Khan

Rating: 2/5

Netflix’s new reality show gives us an insight into the lives of Maheep Kapoor (wife of Sanjay Kapoor), Neelam Kothari Soni (Sameer Soni), Bhavana Pandey (Chunky Pandey, and mother of Ananya Pandey) and Seema Khan (Sohail Khan). Does anyone know these wives? Why are their lives even important?

Well, you could say they make for cringe-worthy entertainment. From prim and proper Neelam to ‘potty mouth’ Maheep, the show is steeped in the Karan Johar kind of drama. Oh, KJo himself makes a cameo. Once he shows up just to create a fight between Bhavana and Seema, which gets resolved the next day when they talk about facelifts. He appears again just to ask why people should watch a series about four women whose claim to fame is that they are wives of yesteryear heroes.

The husbands are shown as too middle-class. In fact, Sanjay Kapoor is the best character on the show as he gives two hoots about being anyone but himself.

In the last episode, Gauri Khan aka the queen of Bollywood wives, throws a party for the four wives to celebrate their friendship. It includes 100 others who probably came there just to be part of the Netflix special. The accents of the four women make no sense. From the movies that Neelam has done in the ‘80s, she seems to have picked up a wanna-be Queen’s English accent. The world is now asking if Sohail and Seema are in an open relationship as they don’t live together. Highlights include the story of how the celeb wives volunteered for a beach cleanup and Bhavana wore high heels. Maheep freaks out thinking she has spotted a used condom, and it turns out to be gloves. During a cookery class, Neelam is reluctant to cut beetroot because her beautiful nails might get stained.

My biggest problem in the show is that every character is introduced as so-and-so’s wife. This identity is made to look more important than anything else. Be grateful if they stop this cringe-fest at one season.