Taskaree, custom-made for pure fun!

Recall that scene in Neeraj Pandeyrsquos series Taskaree Netflix where the customs superintendent Arjun Meena Emraan Hashmi tells his female asset Priya Zoya Afroz that if they execute the espionage plan he has in mind shersquoll have to move out of her current location Al Dera thatrsquos meant to be DubaildquoWhere will I live thenrdquo she asks ldquoThatrsquos what Irsquom thinkingrdquo he says Shersquos hot Hersquos Hashmi Both look over Mumbairsquos skylineAt this point I thought if this was a 2005 Bollywood film mdash that scene would break into lsquoserialkisserrsquo Hashmi striding down UAE desert along with his heroine lipsyncing to a melodiously Sufi songThe sorts that make one go ldquoSaara Bollywood ek taraf Aur Emraan Hashmi ek tarafrdquoTaskareersquos set within Mumbairsquos relatively bland international airport where Hashmi marks his entry with back towards the camera dressed in customs uniform Itrsquos still zanier more entertaining than most Hindi moviesChiefly for how wellresearched it simultaneously feels mdash making me wonder instead if this is how it really works along the conveyorbelt baggagescan and green channel between the ldquopopatrdquo courier with ldquopuntersrdquo who finance them and officers at the other end who use KK ldquoKya karogerdquo ldquopurirdquo for envelope as codewords for bribeThe showrsquos cowriter Vipul K RawalldquoEvery profession has its own internal jargonsrdquo Taskareersquos cowriter Vipul K Rawal who used to be a sailor with the Indian Navy tells meEarly on in his screenwriting career I learn from Rawal hersquod himself unwittingly become victim of a smuggling of sortsAs in hersquod written a script on sports based on a truelife story that hersquod narrated to several filmmakers including Nagesh Kukunoor who was then ostensibly working on Hyderabad Blues 2Later Rawal discovered promos for Kukunoorrsquos Iqbal 2005 which was essentially Rawalrsquos story with hockey interchanged with cricketYoung Rawal used to then burn the midnight oil working at Wiprorsquos callcentre He spent his day pitching scriptsOne of the nights Rawal says he got handed a sum of R3 lakh that was way above his annual salary to shut up about Iqbal and move on He did subsequently with credit for the filmrsquos storyReversely and more recently Rawal tells me he fought hard to withdraw his name from the writing credit for Batti Gul Meter Chalu 2018 because the ldquorehashrdquo hardly matched his researchWith Taskaree there was the pleasanter problem of plentyHe says ldquoWersquove barely scratched the surface Therersquos so much to explore even in unknown corners and crannies of the airportrdquo Something he intends to do with the sequel that in all likelihood would get greenlitOver four years of homework for Taskaree Rawal had access to both retired customs officers and smugglers Their anecdotes and modus operandi made it to the seriesWhich evidently began with the setting the wonderfully recreated Mumbai airport before the story itself mdash that involves ldquorare speciesrdquo inching towards extinctionThat is honest customs officers tasked with cleaning up the system and nabbing smugglers who essentially benefit from taxgaps between nations to illegally import products for local salesconsumptionWhile theyrsquore all fine actors on the show somehow I found the customs officer leads beside Hashmi in the ensemble cast mdash Nandish Sandhu as Ravinder Gujjar Anurag Sinha Prakash Kumar even the assetinformer doubling up as flightattendant Zoya Afroz Priya mdash looking so perfectly groomed and pristine that they could be AIrecreated imagesJokes apart I was obviously gladdest to note the presence of my close friend Sumit Nijhawan as the confidently understated Anna who runs the underground goldtrade between Mumbai and Al Dera mdash under his badass boss Bada Choudhary Sharad Kelkar in Italyrsquos Lake Como married to a former supermodel and with a fun backstory that plays out like a Frank Miller graphic artNice touch there Never so overthetop with grotesquery for violence that the series ever looks extra The thriller always feels like an airport bestsellerGold smuggling is of course merely the metaphor The profit margins are hardly what they used to be when Bollywoodrsquos lsquoloinrsquo Ajit was the smuggler dropping consignments at Madh islandThat said Rawal tells me ldquoIn Dubai there are gold souks marketplaces where you buy gold in the ground floor with karigars artisans in the upper floor converting gold into buttons for jeans spectacles etc There are also informers around these shops who tip off customs officials for a rewardrdquoWhen returning from foreign travel at the customs I usually have nothing to declare but my poverty Itrsquos still surprising to learn from the series that the lowerlimit for dutiable goods to declare is Rs 50000 Many of us might be offendersRawal says ldquoThe officers usually just let you go up until a reasonable amount anyway Some of the richest people get kicks out of illegally shipping in highvalue products stillrdquoTherersquos an IPL cricketer in Taskaree who gets caught because of VATreclaimed receipts from the site of purchase ldquoThatrsquos based on a popular Bollywood star You can google the namecaserdquo Rawal revealsRawalrsquos last collab with director Neeraj Pandey was the film Sikander Ka Muqaddar 2024 Netflix that Irsquod watched right after Pandeyrsquos Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha 2024 Prime Video wondering aloud WTFAfter Taskaree more than anything else must say welcome back Pandey JiMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass cultureHe tweets mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper