Bandish Bandits, a Hindi web series with a plot of a musical love story, and the drama of rivalry for dominance or mastery of music Gharana. 10 episodes fully loaded with Indian classical music and an average length of 33 to 50 minutes is streaming since the first week of August 2020 on Amazon Prime.
Lead role by Tamanna (Shreya Chaudhary) young, beautiful, dynamic, aspiring popular pop singer, famous online media sensation, who performs in concerts but fears to perform live. Her contract with JP, a music company will help her to fulfill her dream to sing with world-famous singer Queen Eli. But contract is in danger as she is not able to fulfill the promise of giving 3 hit songs to the company, she haves some clashes with her mother and she doesn’t like to get any help from her and Radhe (Ritwik Bhowmik) aspiring young Indian classical singer who wants to have Gandabandhan and heir of Panditji, wants to learn various special raagas, songs from Panditji to become the Sangeet Samrat like Panditaji.
Other roles are Pandit Radhemohan Rathod (Naseeruddin Shah) a great Indian classical singer who learned music from Bikaner Gharana, The Sangeet Samrat of Jodhpur from last twenty-five years, special honorary of the King of Jodhpur, he changed Bikaner Gharana name to Rathore Gharana and searching for the heir for his Gharana, who will take forward his legacy, Gharana and serve the music, he did some intentional mistakes in his past life. Digvijay (Atul Kulkarni) Panditji’s student, a great singer, Panditji don’t like him and one major suspense of him, is better to watch in series only. Mohini (Sheeba Chaddha) Radhe’s mother and one major suspense about her also, is better to watch in series. Rajendra (Rajesh Tailang) Radhe’s father who is in the bank’s huge debt and one of the Gandabanadhit student and son of the Panditji. Devendra (Amit Mistry) Panditji’s younger son, Radhe’s uncle, mentor, another Gandabandhit student of the Panditji,who lost his music education because he loved the foreign girl. Arghya (Kunaal Roy Kapur) JP company’s employee and Tamanna’s manager, friend. Kabir (Rahul Kumar) Radhe’s best friend and event director who arranges Tamanna’s show in Jodhpur and helps Radhe to meet Tamanna, keep helping them frequently. Rajaji (Dilip Shankar) King of Jodhpur and fan of Panditji who organizes the Sangeet Samrat competition. Harshvardhan (Rituraj Singh) Tamanna’s father. Munshiji (Shashi Kiran) King’s accountant. Avantika (Meghna Malik) Tamanna’s mother. Randhawa (Sanjay Nath) JP Music Company’s owner. Vikas Yadav (Ajay Kumar) Bank manager. Surya (Harsh Singh) King’s brother and Rajendra’s friend. Sandhya (Tridha Choudhury) King of Jodhpur’s niece and Radhe’s fiancee who learned music in Belgium and some Indian classical from YouTube and Panditji’s fan. Gopinath (Suneel Pushkarna) Mohini’s father. Paddu(Priyanka Arya) Tamanna’s best friend who gets married in Udaipur.
Naseeruddin Shah and Atul Kulkarni, two gems of the acting. The presence of their name together in star cast is one reason enough to watch the web series. Kabeer and Arghya are like a cherry on top with the role of comedian-emotional friend-love guru etc. Everybody else did justice to their role. In some scenes, acting doesn’t look natural but acceptable. Masked man’s look is very artificial, funny, looks odd, and doesn’t suited to musical drama, but maybe it’s a experiment.
The story starts in Jodhpur, Panaditji praying to Sarswati Maata and Veena, to start music class of the students for the day in his Haveli. In Mumbai Tamanna going to Jodhpur by riding a bike and in JP company’s office Arghya discussing Tamanna’s contract with them.
A story, which starts as a love story of two different genre singers Tamanna pop-disco and Radhe Indian classical singer, episode by episode changes the genre to music rivalry-drama-suspense story, with only a small touch of love stories. It became the story of rivalry for dominance or mastery of Gharana and family etc. Slowly story reveals how the ego of a man spoiled everything in a family in the past and present. The base plot is somewhat common but suspense, twist, and turns in story is interesting and exciting.
Panditji doesn’t like commercial singing, he is a devotee of Indian classical music. He will teach the best and special music from Gharana to his best and Gandabandhit student only, who will be the heir of Gharana. Digvijay his old and best student but Panditji expelled him from class and Gharana because he starts commercial singing and also some other reason. Now he is rich man and owns a big music company. After many years he comes back to claim Panditji’s Rathore Gharana by challenging him in the Sangeet Samrat.
Radhe a bright student of panditji, loses an opportunity of Gandabandhan and to become a special student of Gharana. After Devendra’s advice, he passes the Purification test of Panditji and became a special student after Gandabandhan. Somehow he comes to know about Rajendra’s debt and haveli’s auction so he collaborates with Tamanna for singing as a Masked man. He sings Indian classical with fusion, soon after collaboration, he becomes a music sensation in a short time. Radhe with the help of Rajendra and Devendra saves haveli and Panditji unaware of all about this.
Panditji slowly losing his hearing ability and can not sing anymore, so he chooses Radhe for the Sangeet Samrat to sing against Digvijay. When Panditji comes to know about Radhe’s commercial singing with Tamanna, he refuses to teach him and vow of Maun-vrat. Then scattered family comes together to save Panditji’s pride, image, family and music Gharana, etc.
Tamanna-Radhe loves each other and accepts the same, but against Radhe’s wish, Panditji fixes his marriage with Sandhya. Sandhya refuses to cancel the marriage after knowing also Radhe loves Tamanna, but after some turns, she breaks marriage on her own.
No musical-love story completes without intimacy and break-up, Tamanna fights with Radhe and breaks up their relation. A competition of the Sangeet Samrat is limited for Jodhpur only, but to gain popularity and support for Radhe, Arghya convinces King to make it a commercial and bigger event . Along with this much more masala of love stories, rivalry, and family is added in the story.
The main question does Radhe saves Gharana, by defeating Panditji’s great student and established singer Digvijay? How Radhe and Tamanna meet? Why Tamanna breaks up with Radhe? Why Radhe agrees to marry Sandhya? Why Sandhya cancels marriage with Radhe? Why Rajendra is in huge debt? Who teaches music to Radhe, after Panditji refuses? From where Digvijay comes in the picture and who is he actually? Why rich, famous, and hit singer Digvijay claims to own Gharana? Why does he want to change the name from Rathore to Bikaner? Does Tamanna’s dream to sing with Queen Eli fulfills? Why Queen Eli chose Radhe, over Tamanna? What role Tamanna’s mother does to fulfill the daughter’s dream without let her know? What JP company do with Tamanna’s contract? How Radhe hides identity from family after he starts singing commercial singing? To whom Panditji lost the Sangeet Samrat competition twenty-five years ago? What happens to that winner? How Panditji regained his pride and the Sangeet Samrat? Why Panditji go on Maun vrat? Why Mohini often meets rival Digvijay? What is Bandish Bandits? What happens to it? Last but not least Tamanna and Radhe comes together again? And many more masala, suspense, twist, and turns will be revealed in 10 episodes of Bandish Bandits.
It is a good musical drama love story filled with light suspense and twist-turns to dominate music Gharana. Series ends with a twist so you can hope for the next season of the series with a pure musical love story or story of the next stage of musical rivalry.
Sweet and awesome music with Indian classical songs one reason enough to spend time on this web series. Panditji, Mohini, and Digvijay’s presence and their class acting is a bonus. Kabeer and Arghya will keep you smiling. You can watch this story of musical rivalry, having Tadaka of a good love story and series that thrills without any action scene. It is a musical feast for music lovers.
Chetan Nikam 