Relationships are hard. They are like an Odyssean journey (see what I did right there), meandering hopelessly from island to island till you find your home. First loves rarely last, seconds are perhaps a rebound – but the third? Does it make your heart beat faster? Louder? Or does it anchor you in the storm you have weathered for years? Netflix’s latest offering in the romantic drama series Musafir Cafe – based on Divya Prakash Dubey’s novel of the same name – is one such voyage revolving around the lives of Chander (Vikrant Massey), Sudha (Vedika Pinto) and Preeti (Mahima Makwana) – from the chaos of a Delhi apartment to the serenity of the eponymous cafe. But does director Ruchir Arun’s saga of heart, soul and breakups really land? Or does it get swept away in a nostalgia driven mist, losing itself in the vales of oblivion?
At the centre of the tall tale of love and loss and choice is Vikrant Massey’s Chander Mohan Sharma, whose life takes an unexpected turn when he lands up to meet a prospective bride in Vedika Pinto’s Sudha. A fiercely independent divorce lawyer, whose life revolves around her mother and the firm idea of not settling down, she cajoles Chander to get out of his comfort zone and chase his dreams. Chander’s second relationship (he still could not call his first ‘ex’), he tries moulding his traditional sensibilities to match the spontaneous spunk of Sudha – even resorting to live together out of wedlock. But life has a way of bringing forth priorities and sometimes the heart speaks louder than the head.
At the centre of the tall tale of love and loss and choice is Vikrant Massey’s Chander Mohan Sharma
Years later (eight to be precise), Chander has left his city desk job and is living his dream – running the Musafir Cafe – with his new constant Preeti (Mahima Makwana). The soul of the Cafe, she anchors a weather-worn Chander – but a tiny doubt remains – has Chander really moved on? Would he remain loyal to Preeti, if Sudha came back to his life?
Musafir Cafe ultimately wants to be a meditation on love, timing and the people who leave indelible marks on our lives. And it genuinely has the right ingredients – a heartfelt premise, emotionally layered adult relationships that feel real and moments that genuinely resonate. What mars Arun’s romance saga, however, is the fact that it takes far too long to arrive at its destination.
Across its eight-episode first season, Musafir Cafe’s narrative meanders, lingers on silences and repetitive emotional beats, finally finding its heartbeat in the final two episodes, when the past and present collide, the stakes feel tangible, and a possible future comes knocking.
Vedika Pinto is magnetic as the fiercely independent Sudha, while Mahima Makwana brings remarkable warmth and a quiet resilience as Chander’s partner Preeti, making both women equally easy to root for. However, Vikrant Massey and as an extension – Chander, despite his undeniable talent, oddly feels out of sync with the material, delivering a performance that never quite captures the emotional turbulence with the conviction the role demands, really coming into his own – briefly – in the penultimate act.
The secondary cast of the series in Adil Hussain, Sadiya Siddiqui, Anubha Fatehpuria and Loveleen Mishra are all extremely talented actors, who do not quite find the scope within the narrative arc to shine. The stories almost entirely focus on Chander, Sudha and Preeti and therein lies both its triump and fragility.
By the time Musafir Cafe finds its footing, it feels as if the journey has already tested the audience’s patience, and when it does escalate into a full-blown emotional catastrophe – as most modern relationships are warranted to do, we are left grabbing at an exhaustion that feels – sans denouement – tiring. Like the travellers who stop by the quaint Musafir Cafe, the series sings of a story worth hearing – but gets marred by a languidity it does not deserve.