GAL PALS TACKLE CRIME

Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti's latest heroine is a police officer as feisty as themselves

- POOJA BIRAIA JAISWAL

A plucky lady cop, Anjali Bhaati (Sonakshi Sinha), leads an investigation into the murders of 27 young women across Rajasthan in Amazon Prime Video’s latest crime drama, Dahaad. Back home, her mother regularly presses her to get married. One night, when she brings photographs of prospective grooms, Bhaati, in turn, shows her horrific images of the battered women whose deaths she is investigating. That puts an end to all discussions of marriage.

At work, she faces constant jibes about her caste. Once, she is prevented from entering a minister’s house because he thinks her caste is a bad omen. She barges in and shames the minister in front of her full force. Tasked with leading the investigation, Bhaati observes a pattern: the women are all dressed in bridal wear and found dead inside public toilets, foaming at the mouth. It appears that a serial killer lures poor and emotionally vulnerable girls into marriage and then makes them consume a contraceptive pill laced with cyanide in a hotel room.

This forms the central narrative of Dahaad, created by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti, in which the duo once again pulls off what they do best: flesh out a story around a strong-willed, feisty and rebellious woman who knows her mind and makes her own rules. Take the previous films which they co-wrote— the light-hearted Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011), the neo-noir Talaash (2012) or the disruptive Gully Boy (2019). All of them feature strong and fiery leading ladies, be it Katrina Kaif as an underwater diver, Rani Mukerji as the wife who established an identity for herself outside marriage, or Alia Bhatt as the young and possessive girlfriend.