I have holes to punch in the documentary’s very title ‘The Indrani Mukerjea Story: Buried Truth’. The true crime series on the Sheena Bora murder case, which sent shockwaves through Mumbai’s high society, doesn’t uncover anything substantial that’s not already out in public. At best, it is an extended newsreel that packs 10 years of twists and turns in four episodes.
By naming the series after former media executive Indrani Mukerjea, the prime accused, who’s out on bail after 6.5 years in custody, it sort of gives legitimacy to her ‘truths’. Worse, she is the only accused among her driver and her two ex-husbands, including then-media baron Peter Mukerjea, who came on record.
Naming it after Sheena, first revealed as Indrani’s sister and later her daughter, would have been sensible. This is something Vidhie, Indrani’s daughter from her second husband and co-accused Sanjeev Khanna, reminds the viewers too – a bright and newly-engaged 25-year-old girl was killed. And if Indrani’s belief is anything to go by, Sheena is still alive!
What the series does lay out well is that families aren’t perfect and relationships are conditional. All the sympathy that Indrani’s son Mikhail scores for being ‘tortured’ by his mother evaporates the moment he reveals he bought an SUV when his ailing grandparents were struggling to afford medicines. Mikhail was using me for money, Indrani comments on their relationship. Through Vidhie, the series also shines light on children from broken families.
Rahul Mukerjea, Sheena’s fiance and Peter’s son, declined to participate but his phone call recordings lend heft to the narrative. Rahul had recorded conversations with his father as the latter did not take Sheena’s disappearance seriously.
The story of the Bora-Mukherjea family is stranger than fiction but is watchable despite lack of novelty, especially if you haven’t followed the case.
Published 08 March 2024, 22:57 IST