Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives
To emit: Maheep Kapoor, Bhavana Panday, Neelam Kothari Soni, Seema Khan
Are you in the mood to worship a celebrity? Netflix’s latest reality show, Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives, is just what you need. What was supposed to be a collective exercise in laughing with (and primarily at) Juhu’s real housewives has become yet another eulogy in the glory of Bollywood superstars, this time Shah Rukh and his wife Gauri Khan. Some might call it the only thing that makes four screaming and gaping women worth putting up with, but I’d rather press play for some Kardashian nonsense rather than another special Shah Rukh episode from Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai.
Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives, or Fabulous Lives, as we’ll tackle from now on (as producer Karan Johar has assured an annoying Madhur Bhandarkar), could have been the perfect watch. It had the right ingredients: star cameos, Karan’s blessings, star children in need, actor husbands who are colorful characters themselves, and his four wives who run the show.
Maheep Kapoor, the wife of actor Sanjay Kapoor, stands out above the other three as the most feisty who has a penchant for drama, chaos, and catfights, making her the perfect candidate for the show. She calls her friends tw * ts, stupid cows, ****** and more, but no one seems to take offense as she seems genuinely affectionate as she says the words. From his unrecognizable accent drawn up in over half a dozen countries, to all his scenes with Sanjay (which is the best thing about the show), Maheep rarely seems to be faking it, which is a rarity on a show that seems largely scripted. .
Then there’s Neelam Kothari Soni, whose accent is even stronger than ever. Neelam is married to Samir Soni and used to be quite a popular actress in the 80s. Those around her encourage her to come back, but she seems reluctant. She is hesitant to audition, doesn’t know if she can perform anymore, and needs her celebrity friends to convince her of what should have been a self-realized idea. For the most part, she has adapted to her celebrity mom lifestyle and refuses to accept it, something Maheep owns and embraces with pride.
Bhavana Panday is the sanest of all and makes sense in her fights. She is the wife of Chunky Panday and mother of actor Ananya Panday. However, you can’t always trust your healthier side. She believes in tightening her skin by harnessing the ‘energies of the earth’ and would not travel on the same plane as her husband in the event that it crashed and her children were orphaned. She is close friends with her tarot reader and has even cornered Ananya to protect herself from the Nazars.
Lastly, Seema Khan, who is the baby spice of the group. Married to Sohail Khan, she apparently lives in a separate house across from him while his eldest son chooses which house to spend the night in. Seema is a fashion designer and loves to turn heads. Whether it’s crying on an airplane during mild turbulence or throwing tantrums on a holiday, Seema can irritate you through the screen. Women, therefore, are not really the problem.
The biggest problem is the serious tone the show has taken. In the opening episodes, as the introductions are made and the mood sets, Fabulous Lives is at its most entertaining. Sanjay Kapoor brings you genuine fish out of water moments as the Desi dad takes his daughter, Shanaya, to the prestigious and pretentious Le Bal among the Parisian elite. Karan Johar enters with the fireworks, lighting the match that ignites the first and only fight of the entire season. Without enough organic fighting, manufacturers resort to cooking a few. Obviously, there is a fake stalker angle and even the phone conversations are written to the core.
Apparently, Maheep is in an important meeting with a client, unable to answer his phone. However, once he’s three steps away, he puts the phone on speakerphone to yell at his friends. Surely the client (probably a fake one) can still hear it. The program makes very little effort to hide such cases. Perhaps an approach more akin to Masaba Masaba would have suited Fabulous Lives better.
Also read: Sana Khan goes for a car ride with her husband Anas Sayied, her mother-in-law pampers her with homemade biryani. Clock
Since the fight, the script takes the women on a vacation to Doha, a long and poorly hidden two-episode city tourist ad. They come home for a grand finale, a party thrown in their honor earlier this year by Gauri Khan. This is when the show takes a leap so off topic that it’s impossible to return safely. Shah Rukh and Gauri are so firmly placed on a pedestal that even their title cards refuse to specify who they are. Now I have been in love with Shah Rukh ever since I learned of his existence, but even I feel like it got out of hand.
Of course, Shah Rukh is still his charming self, bringing the softest and most cathartic moment of the show in his final 15 minutes. But the show was still supposed to be about women and their lives. And they shouldn’t have needed a superstar intervention of deity-like proportions. There were moments of their own that stood out as sweet and sometimes even emotional. Neelam revisits his younger days and teaches girls to Bollywood dance. Maheep talks about the sadness he feels for being the ‘least successful family’ of the three Kapoor brothers, while Chunky says that he would not go to Ananya’s awards ceremonies because he feels jinx, as he himself never won an award. Then there is Samir, who feels pathetically left out among his wife’s friends. Not just shrinking, there were a lot of things Fabulous Lives was on the right track to explore. However, perhaps Shah Rukh’s charm and open arms were too good to resist.
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