‘Shodha’ Series Review: Fairly Engaging But Excessively Rough Around The Edges

Somewhere in Sunil Mysuru’s Kannada series Shodha is a perfectly engaging idea: a lawyer (Pawan Kumar), who has just reported his wife missing, refuses to recognise or accept her (Siri Ravikumar) when she walks back into his life. Is his wife up to something, or does the lawyer have a secret or two in his vault? The spiffy Zee5 series lines up various such questions, sending us into a deep theorising spiral, leaving us to mentally accuse every character in the series at least once. But when the secrets are finally spilt, they don’t quite hold water…falling terribly short perhaps of our imagination. 

It’s hard to assess Rohit (played by Pawan Kumar). The devilish lawyer switches between grating to naive in seconds, especially when he’s talking about his missing wife. His world in Madikeri consists of his wife Meera, daughter Tara, and his sister-in-law Aditi, and they are equally hard nuts to crack. At first glance, they seem to be a happy family who care for each other, but we slowly realise that everyone holds secrets — some bigger than the rest. Things get murky when Siri Ravikumar or “nakli Meera” (as Rohit likes to call her) introduces herself as Rohit’s wife, and boy, does she come with receipts. 

Rohit’s plight, which occasionally oversteps the larger investigation (led by Arun Sagar’s sincere cop), leads to some light laughs. Pawan Kumar depicts the arrogance of an all-knowing lawyer and the helplessness of a newly single dad effortlessly in places, even if the English-mangled Kannada lines don’t always do him justice. His monologue in the penultimate episode is an amusing highlight of Shodha and a testament to the power of clever writing. The cast is tight, so even secondary characters, Siri Ravikumar and Anusha Ranganath, get the scope to perform. 

A big part of the missing puzzle in Shodha is not really Meera, but their daughter Tara. The child’s story, which is shown with glimpses of her rehearsals for her Kodava warrior play, holds key answers to her own mother’s story. "Rohit might not be a good husband, but he sure is a good father," Arun Sagar remarks at one point, an observation that’s not too far from the truth. The screenplay, written by Suhas Navarathna and doctored by Pawan Kumar (the actor-director is credited to be the show’s script doctor), explores the effects of domestic altercations on young children.

But Tara’s relationship with Rohit or Meera — that is something of the show's backbone — needed a lot more space to develop. The same could also be said of Rohit’s own backstory. What explains his changing moods? Why is a small-town cop so invested (the station seems to have all the money and time in the world to fix Rohit’s issues) in a missing person’s case? While it’s understandable why the makers wanted to hit the ground running with the taut investigation right from episode 1, the economic screen time and tightrope writing also mean that there is no time left to tie up the loose ends with dexterity.

The finale is the most affected victim of its writing. Choppy flashback scenes and convenient answers bookend the last act, leaving more to be desired.