Puneet Batra

Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990) begins with the iconic line by Ray Liotta as Henry Hill: “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” The series Court Kacheri, I figured, speaking to the show’s creator and founder of TVF, Arunabh Kumar, begins with a tribute to Goodfellas. The protagonist declares, “[As far back as I can remember] mein toh saala kabhi lawyer banna hi nahin chahta tha (I never wished to be a lawyer)!” Court Kacheri is a legal drama. But that’s a genre. The way it works with the OTT scene in general — and perhaps a reason so much of the content sucks — is if, say, a popular Hindi heartland thriller, historical fiction, or a courtroom drama, exists on a platform, the others order one for their own. The courtroom is merely a setting, isn’t it? The emotional core will still come from the story, and the characters. At the centre of Court Kacheri is the father (Pawan Malhotra), son (Ashish Verma), and protégé (Puneet Batra), who work in a district court. ‘Welcome to Sarjanpur’, yes; but I don’t know where it is. An inmate of sorts to this generic geography of small-town North India is the son, who feels gagged by his father’s natural ambition. That the dad’s set up a law practice, the son must inherit it. It’s an interesting take on nepotism that comes with its own form of oppression. Wherein everything served on a platter inescapably inhibits life’s choices. Kids in richest families, more so, suffer from this imprisonment. Another reason I’ve never envied them! What about the show? Column👇🏽(link in bio)