‘Call Me Bey’ series review: Ananya Pandey delivers a no-carb comedy

A still from ‘Call Me Bay’ Photo credit: Special Arrangements

What’s the rush? What is Mumbai? One of the most confusing things call me bay — a new comedy series starring Ananya Panday and streaming on Prime Video — is a simple rap number that plays in the early episodes, reminding you how, once you’re there, the city of dreams will engulf you. It’s a riches-to-rags comedy that hopes to poke fun by airdropping its unlikely protagonist into a typical Mumbai cut and thrust. Except, sitting next to Veera’s local, sweating profusely or watching it, the common Mumbaikar wouldn’t know. Tarak Mehta episodes

The protagonist is Bela Chowdhury (Pandey), or simply Bei. A wealthy socialite from South Delhi, she is ostracized by her husband, business tycoon Agastya (Bihan Samat), when he finds her hooking up with a coach. A series of vaguely defined circumstances leaves Bey parked in Mumbai with her expensive handbag. Shunned by family and friends, Bey resolves to regain her sense of self-worth. This proves somewhat challenging – as Bae’s qualifications include, among other things, ‘Psychic Vegan Cheese and Wine Pairing’ and ‘David Beckham Studies’. He also calls an autorickshaw a ‘tuk tuk’ (Kim Kardashian, who dropped by the Ambani wedding two months ago, did much better).

Fortunately, Bae has a saving grace. He once did a course on social media journalism, or, as he himself puts it, ‘how to tell a deep story in less than 140 characters’. It won him an internship at a leading news channel where the staff went around dressed as leopards and spaceships. Nevertheless, Bey began earning under her own steam and soon built herself a small following of supporters.

Created by Ishita Maitra and directed by Colin D’Cunha, the series has a disarmingly literal sense of humor. Bae was born with a literal golden spoon. She is rigorously trained by her status-obsessed, obsessed-athlete mother (Mini Mathur) to be a trophy wife; An actual trophy lights up during said reveal. Some lines take you by surprise (“Dinesh… let’s go to space”; “Hi faye! I’m bae”). Yet the wordplay does not match the inventive dramatic situation. There are harrowing flashbacks to Bey’s less-than-perfect past – from her struggles with drinking and shoplifting, to her tumultuous marriage, to her time volunteering at a New York animal shelter.

call me bay It has too many Western sitcoms in mind to become its own show entirely. Time to name-check Bae The wonderful Mrs. MaiselIt has its shades Sheets Creek, Two Broke Girls And Emily in Paris. Bey’s globe-trotting anecdotes aren’t as interesting as Alexis Rose’s Sheets Creek. Mumbai, meanwhile, barely registers as a backdrop. An early check in to ‘Lost’ Bay is a hippie-chic commune that could be anywhere; The house next door, shared with a colleague, is as spacious and moodily lit as you’d expect from a dramatic production.

More than the #MeToo track that picks up midway through, with Bae and his gang chasing an anonymous tip, the series is even more engaging in its quieter, detached moments. At least one relationship, on the side, blossoms unexpectedly. The series may also have something interesting to say about mother and child—and filial relationships in general. When one character complains that, being the child of a single mother, he was never ‘pampered’, another responds by saying that he is always pampered, even though his mother was also single. “She used to make me tea with lemon, ginger, cinnamon,” she recalls fondly. There are different shades of parenting and different shades of growth.

Ananya Pandey as Bela ‘Bay’ Chowdhury in ‘Call Me Bey’

after Gehraian (2022) and Kho Gaye Hum Kahan(2023), Pandey again plays a character who wants to keep it modestly in his nearest wheelhouse. His dashing, exuberant exuberance carries a large part of the dead narrative. Still, it’s not the toughest role—beyond the fact that Bey is naturally beautiful, and enjoys getting plastered in stressful moments, there’s not much meat on her gluten-free plate. Veer Das, an instinctive and celebrated comic, wings it to the part of a dirty anchor. Most interesting is his managing editor. “We don’t want to be a news channel that is on the wrong side of history,” he cautioned earnestly. Good for you, sir.