What happens when three dysfunctional women try to cover up a crime and while doing so come to understand each other better?
That was the idea
that the writer-director duo of Pooja Tolani and Suresh Triveni wanted to explore in “Maa Behen”.
The black comedy, starring Madhuri Dixit, Triptii Dimri and Dharnaa Durga, has been a constant in Netflix’s list of top 10 titles after it premiered on the platform last month.
Set in a fictional, middle-class housing society called Adarsh Colony, the movie follows Rekha, a single mother, and her two estranged daughters, Jaya and Sushma, whose lives spiral into chaos after they discover a dead body in Rekha’s kitchen.
Tolani said she enjoyed writing about the eccentric trio of women and exploring how a small town is both unsettled by and deeply invested in their household.
“We started with this idea that it would be a comic film about a crime that these dysfunctional three women, who were crazy and unhinged, are trying to cover up. And somewhere along the way, they will come together and how they come together is by joining a sisterhood of sorts. So, I think as we developed the material, it started to kind of become evident that we need to first have fun with how people look at them and then flip the narrative,” Tolani told PTI in an interview.
Dixit said she had a lot of fun playing the titular “Maa” in the story, who is unlike the way mothers are represented in Indian cinema. Rekha loves her sleeveless blouses, colourful saris and a rose in hair and gets more male attention than her two daughters. Then when the perspective changes, her character also changes.
“I think these are two different personalities. One is what people are seeing through the eyes and what she actually is. How people perceive her is this woman who is always flirting around… She wears a sleeveless blouse. So, (they feel) she has some bad intentions on everyone.. Even the audience feels at that point that something’s wrong,” Dixit said.
“But later on, of course, you come to know that it’s the eye of the beholder, like they say. I loved the fact that it was done in a fun way and not in a realistic way. And then you get to know that she’s just a woman trying to survive.”
Triveni, known for women-led dramas like “Tumhari Sulu”, “Jalsa” and the series “Daldal”, credited Tolani for creating the distinct world of “Maa Behen”.
“I have this greed that we have such great stories and actors who are hungry whether it is Shefali (Shah), Vidya (Balan), Madhuri ma’am, Bhumi (Pednekar) or Triptii (Dimri) The idea was to make an engaging film, entertaining film, that keeps you guessing. By saying that you are making a women-centric films, we are limiting. But, I want to work with more fantastic actors and I am proud that most of them are women,” he said.
Asked about the way she projects female rage in the movie through these three women, Tolani said, “We all carry so much anger within and it is bound to boil up. I cannot just beat up people, so I use my pen to tell stories like this,” she added.
Ravi Kishan, who has been on a roll with the success of “Laapata Ladies” and “Mamla Legal Hai”, said his character of Aadarsh Gupta is a shady but respected personality in the society. And it was very important for him to reflect the duality of that face, he added.
“In fact, women are just loving Gupta ji’s character. I thought they should not like me, but they’re just loving it because they are not looking at this character individually, they’re not looking at me, they’re looking at the society, like how he wants the house and how he has an eye on these people. And they are coming up with their own stories of how they suffered,” Kishan said.
Dixit said she enjoyed the rhythm of the language used in “Maa Behen”, which has a distinct flavour of the Purvanchal region.
“Even if you fight in that language, it appears sweet to the ears. It doesn’t sound harsh because of the language and its rhythm… Language itself was one of the characters in this movie. But Suresh said a very good thing. He said, ‘Don’t get entangled in this’, but as long as you keep the lyrical rhythm of the language, we are fine,” she added.
The actor said she is enjoying this phase where she gets to play different characters, be it “The Fame Game”, “Maja Ma”, “Mrs Deshpande” or “Maa Behen”.
“Directors and writers write according to their own standards. And create these real life, relatable characters for the screen. And I think it’s wonderful for actors like me, who are always hungry to do something new, something great, and something that says something.
“When I did ‘Mrs. Deshpande’, it was a very austere kind of a film. It was a film with a lot of patience. But in this, I could go wild, go crazy. And the characters were also a little crazy who live life on their own terms. I just gave myself to this role because it was written so beautifully and directed amazingly,” Dixit said, praising streamers like Netflix for driving the change.
Kishan too credited Netflix for giving his career new heights with “Mamla Legal Hai”.
“Netflix showed the artist inside me to the world. People were forgetting me, but I came back to life. Like Suresh ji listened to my request to add a Bhojpuri song in ‘Maa Behen’,” he said.