Gyaarah Gyaarah (11:11) Review — Sucharita Tyagi
Pehle bhi kahaa hai mainey, I love a time-loop story. Clever likhaayi exhibit karne ka mauka, aur audience ko puzzles mein end tak engage rakhne ki opportunity.
Par genre mein 19 se 20 ho jaayein, toh wahee discerning aur involved audience ek ek kar ke dhaage bhi khol degi screenplay ke.
Aao aaj Gyaarah Gyaarah ki baat karein
Kisko nahi chahiye ki guzre samay ko badalne ki thodi bohot kshamata aa jaaye kisi tarah? Sochiye agar time mein travel nahi toh kam se kam control karne ki ability aa jaati toh sabse pehle kya karte? Instinctively you might say, 50s mein aur property khareed lete, etc, but hand on your heart, most of us would like to be able to talk to a loved one, jo iss duniya mein nahi hai.
Aisa sa kuch original concept that Hollywood film Frequency ka, that released nearly 25 years ago, that was THEN adapated to a series called frequency, and then TWO MORE series called Signal, one Korean, one Japanese. Means for presumably well thought out reasons, yeh story east-west duniya bhar mein creatives ke saath resonate kar rahi hai.
India mein, the man behind Pagglait, Umesh Bist ne yeh responsibility li, aur seemingly thoda base structures ko alter kar ke AATH episodes ki yeh series taiyyar kari hai.
Jitna samay ka flow unpredictable hai, utna human behaviour bhi. Isliye ek procedural where youre on the hunt for MANY killers, while also playing with the rules of time, is a near perfect set up. However, the story has to be watertight and sure of itself, especially when stretched thin over many episodes. 11:11 ke pehle season mein we get to see 3 unsolved cases brought to conclusions, however after the first case is solved, the remaining two lose steam, running on fumes by the end.
The first few episodes give the viewer ample opportunities to get to know the characters, utilized very adeptly. Time travel ke koi details nahi samjhaaya jaaye, par ek khatam lambe chal rahe case ki final sunvaayi ki deadline paas aane ki wajah se ke inbuilt reverse clock chaaloo rakhi jaati hai, maan lo saying ki tum samay ko control paao ya nahi, samay tumhe control zaroor kar raha hai. Kaun hai yeh Inspector Yug Aarya aur kyun ITNA iss cold case mein invested hain? Inspector Shaurya, jiska yeh case tha initially kyun isey solve nahi kar paya and Wamiqa ka past aur present dono se kya connection hai. It's cheesy and pulpy and very inviting. Once the time travel begins, I am wilfully, happily ready to overlook loopholes in the writing as well, because who cares as long as you're having fun?
However, pehle case ke khatam hone ke baad, editor Prerna Saigal has been instructed to KEEP reminding viewers of the date and time in every few scenes, which is more nettling than it is helpful. The show isn’t convinced its viewers are going to “get it”, or going to follow, and its attempts to provide visual crutches eventually end up watering down the viewer’s satisfaction of having put the puzzle together on their own.
By episode three, when the magical connection between Shaurya in the 90s and Yug in the present timelines begin to get clearer, show mein crime cases ke saath-saath ek parallel track shuru hota hai, ki yeh connection kya hai, kyun hai, raat ke 11:11 bajey kyun hota hai, aur kaise decide hota hai gaye zamaane mein agli kahaani kahaan khulegi. Series ko in savaalon ke aadhe cliffnager-y jawaabo tak laate laate heavy-handed melodrama mein kho jaati hai woh taut tension joh pehle kuch episodes mein bakhoobi bani thi. It almost feels like do alag creative directions mein sho khinch jaata hai. Attention to detail dekhein agar Raghav Juyal ke ghar ke set mein khoobsurat hai. Dune aur 1984 ki quotes bhi likhi hai, Ambedkar ka Chhota putla bhi hai. We are told he has a background in criminal psychology. Chhat se dikhaai deta ghnta ghar reminds you of the time, aur ghar mein paaltu billi makes him an even more likeable protagonist. Soft masculinity se bharpoor yeh kirdaar khud ke liye khaana bhi banaata dikhta hai, sade huye kankaal ko dekh dar ke bhaagta bhi hai, emotions mein kari gayi galatiyon ko manta hai aur supervisor ko nazar andaaz nahi karta just because she is a woman, infact office ke sabse kaam chor aadmiyon se hi bhidta nazar aata hai, using a display of his own confidence in masculinity to highlight the insecurities of those around him. It helps that Raghav Juyal is just in absolute top form right now, even when he’s made to mumble to himself, ki iss scene mein exposition ke baadal phaad ke rakh do, there is an extremely endearing sincerity to him that makes you want to ignore the fact one of the cases he is solving is callously called the “tie and die” case because the killer ties the victim after his kills them and no one acknowledges how absolutely horrendous this pun is.
Yeh detailing thodi kam hokar Dhairya ke kirdaar Shaurya ko milti hai aur Kritika Kamra ki Wamiqa taka ate aate aur bhi negligent ho jaati hai. I supposed we are going to find out more in the next season, but despite 8 episodes, the only additional info you know about Wamiqa is that her mother really wants her married and she is friends with a mysterious time keeper who may or may not know about the tilasmi walkie-talkie. Kritika ki performance oscillates between subtle and the exact opposite of subtle, an acting choice she makes is to play Wamiqa as constantly upset, struggling to find and latch on to a secondary layer. Wamiqa is consistently a predictable level of angry, which inadvertently flattens her out a bit. In one of the more egregious scenes of the show, Wamiqa shows up mid-press conference to interrupt her superior played ridiculously loudly by Harsh Chhaya, to announce a different outcome and bizarrely the members of the press begin to clap. Now I don’t claim to know anything about how media functions in Dehradun but even I can tell you, a rescuing stranded astronauts from outer space level of events has to occur to illicit such a response from people accustomed to writing about crime on The Daily.
Almost as a foil to the subtle simmering anger of Yug, Shaurya, who sweet Yug calls Shaurya bhai, is always ready to pick a fight. 3–4 hand-to-hand combat sequences give Dhairya some action to do, but become repetitive fast, stretching the duration instead of adding depth to it. Season ek ant mein ek sub-plot mein an actor is shown to be addicted to drugs and hence she gets in trouble. The whole treatment is so heavy-handed and poorly researched, it’s like someone who has never seen an elephant is made to draw the animal from imagination. Repeated close-up shots of a poster that says something that strongly underlines the kid has daddy issues silly bhi hai aur dekhen waalo ki intelligence ke liye insulting bhi. Khoobsurati se shuru karke end tak CID tak pohonch gaye eventually.
Jaise mainey oopar kahaan, time travel, magic realism, Manifest jaise shows dekhna pasand hai, shaam ko dinner ke saath, toh yeh Puja Bannerjee, Umesh Bist ki adapatation dekhein, its now streaming on Zee 5.
So, on a scale of 1 to 10, 11:11 is……2 was probably my fav episode of the lot, tum dekh kar bataao which one you liked!
