Tandav’s is Prime’s latest show revolving around the corruption and dirt in politics set against the Indian experience. 

The show opens with a gorgeous bird’s eye view of stark village lands in India, an unknown man driving a car listening to political commentary on the radio and a farmer’s protest. The unknown man pulls up at the farmer’s protest with a clear message. The protest needs to be quashed and the farmers need to be dispersed by the evening. A foreign company wants to build a factory on this land. We are in a village called Malakpur somewhere in the heartland of Uttar Pradesh. He encourages the policemen to sin. 

The policemen turn around and open fire into a peaceful protest. The crowd begins to run in terror. Lathis and bullets pour down alike. This is hard to watch specially in light of the farmers’ protests raging across the country and the police brutality that we witness on our screens regularly nowadays. Innocent people are injured and killed. 

The show shifts our focus now to Delhi. Devki Niwas is a sprawling bungalow in Lutyen’s Delhi. Crowds have gathered and media commentary in the background signals to an upcoming election where JLD, a prominent political party, is likely to win. The crowds are chanting in support of JLD and we see our first glimpse of Samar Pratap Singh played by Saif Ali Khan standing in appreciation of his fans. The unknown man informs Samar that he has taken care of Malakpur and so far no media company is reporting on the incident. Samar is the brains behind the injustice we saw in the last scene. 

Elsewhere in Devki Niwas we see Devki Nandan Singh, the current and probably future Prime Minister of the country discussing the state of affairs with the second most senior member of the party, Gopal Das. Devki Nandan tells his friend that he is scared of his son’s ambitions referring to him as a “Taanashah” or dictator. He can see the glint in his son’s eye and recognises that Samar will go to any lengths for power. Devki Nandan cautions his son about an upcoming interview telling him not to gloat as if the elections are already won. He wants to only count his chickens once they are hatched. He also tells Samar to stay away from mentioning the distribution of ministries. There seems to be some disagreement about the best person to handle the defence ministry. Samar wants India’s youngest female fighter pilot, Aditi Mishra in the post while Devki Nandan wants to give the ministry to someone else.

The man is Raghu, introduced in the next scene, speaking nonsense to himself in the mirror and high as a kite on cocaine. 

Samar goes in for the interview telling his interviewer off-camera to ask him about Aditi Mishra for Defence. This man is dangerous and certainly not playing by the rules. 

Now the story shifts to VNU, which is obviously inspired from JNU, a prominent space of dissent in the real India. A student named Imran who we briefly caught a glimpse of in the farmer’s protest in Malakpur is picked up by the cops under UAPA. UAPA is a draconian law that is used to book terrorists, but mostly has been used to arrest student activists, academics and climate change warriors. VNU students come together and discuss that Imran has been picked up because of his involvement in the Malakpur protests. They head to the police station and demand that their friend be released. The police gives them a shuffle around without any concrete results. 

Back in Devki Niwas, we see Samar’s wife Ayesha (played brilliantly by Sarah Jane) asking Samar if he’s alright. She tells him that he looks scared for the first time in his life. I wonder why he’s scared? Clearly a big political move is coming up from his end, but we don’t know as yet what that’s going to be. 

We also see Anuradha (always a joy whenever Dimple Kapadia enters a screen) coming to meet Devki Nandan, the night before he will become PM for the third time. She is nostalgic about the time that Devki wanted to leave Delhi, but he stayed because of her. They look lovingly into each other’s eyes, clearly these two have been together for some time now. While the show doesn’t delve into details at this point, I am guessing that Raghu, Anuradha’s son, is Devki’s illegitimate child and he wants to give him the Defence ministry as a way to take care of his son. The other reason of course, is that Raghu can be easily manipulated and will never go against his father. Whenever someone gets nostalgic in a show, we should have reason to worry. Nostalgia implies that things are going to change drastically in the next scene…forever!

Back at the police station, the students reach the end of their patience. A natural leader emerges, a student named Shiv Shekhar. He snaps at the policeman in irritation which leads to the police staging fake violence at the station. They are trying to frame the student activists as instigators. Once again, the memory of CAA protests has not yet faded and this too lands close to home.

Samar Pratap Singh wants to celebrate with his father and offers him a drink. He pours him a glass of wine and asks why Devki Nandan never married Anuradha. He anticipates that his father response will be that he never remarried so he could take care of Samar properly and debunks this answer saying that his father never loved him. The only thing his father cared about is the seat of power. As the father opens his mouth to protest, Devki Nandan finds that he is short of breath. I knew it! Samar has poisoned him! 

Samar tells him that it will take 60 seconds for him to die. HIs heart will stop and there will be no evidence of wrong doing. Devki immediately speed dials Anuradha from his pocket in the hopes that she will pick up and hear his confession. Samar is telling him that his father never loved him or appreciated him. He never got credit and always felt like he had to live in his shadow. And so it’s best for his interest, if his father is no more. Then he gets all the power. The taanashah has made his first move. 

Anuradha never picks up and is unable to hear any of this. Devki Nandan Singh dies. 

Episode Rating 3.5/5