TRIBHANGA -Tedi, Medi, Crazy.- The story of three different generation

Khevna.P.Shah, INN/Bangalore

Content Writer

The audience has always enjoyed a good mother-daughter drama movie. Films such as MOM, English-Vinglish, Nil Bata Sannata, or Neerja have always given the best mother-daughter goals. As every mother-daughter relationship is different, similarly Tribhanga-Ted, Medi, Crazy directed by Renuka Shahane has a different emotion, storyline, and journey to offer.

The entire film keeps oscillating between the past and the present reflecting the decisions made by the mothers and daughters of the three-generation. Nayantara(Tanvi Azmi) is a renowned writer, working on her autobiography. Anuradha Apte(Kajol), daughter of Nayantara and a single mother who is a controversial actress and excellent Oddisi dancer. Masha(Mithila Palikar), daughter of Anuradha Apte married into a conservative family. The three-generation of women are completely different from each other, with their contrasting personalities. The film beautifully shows the struggle face by the women of each generation and the outcome of their decision reflecting on the next. Robindoro(Vaibhav Tatwawadi)is Nayantara’s son and Anuradha’s brother, though he doesn’t play the central character in the film, his role did definitely contribute to Anuradha’s life. The moments shared between them definitely give us the sibling goals but would have been better if their moments could have lasted a little longer. The entire autobiography of Nayantara is recorded by a Hindi-writer and a fanboy, Milan(Kunaal Roy Kapoor). Apart from this, the veteran Kanwalijit Sigh appears for a small cameo role.

Tribhanga -Tedi, Medi, Crazy is Kajol’s debut OTT release. It’s disappointing to see that such renowned actress Tanvi Azmi’s had quite a few on-screen scenes. It would have been a treat for the viewer’s eyes to watch her in lead. Mithila Palikar dint has a major role but sincere efforts were put by her in the character to make it come out alive. As the matter of fact, all the actors did a fantastic job in making the characters a mere character, but mold them into real,life-like characters, making it easier for the audience to connect with them. Tribhanga was originally supposed to be a small Marathi film, later became a Hindi Netflix original as Kajol and Siddharth P Malhotra signed up for it.

Tribhanga is an Oddisi dance pose and a representation of Anuradhas’s personality. Similarly, Nayantra’s personality is represented by the dance pose Abhyanga and Masha’s personality is represented by the dance pose Samabhanga. Defining the characters through a dance form is both clear and unique. The ideas in the movies were surely a slap to the patriarchal society and raised questions on the society’s backward thinking. Leaving the in-law’s house and changing the children’s surname was definitely a bold move, but the outcome of it was negative. But again the era matters as well. Surely if this step was taken by women in the contemporary world, she would be appreciated. The film managed to show the result of the outcome affecting the daughters by the decisions taken by the mother. Where one side Anuradha blames her mother, Nayantara for her traumatic and abusive past, similarly Masha blames her mother for the reason of being called out in school. It is abysmal to witness how women can never be selfish and established a mark for themselves.

 A woman sure does have responsibilities of a mother, a daughter, and a wife, and the responsibilities are no different for a man, but we don’t see society complaining when the males prioritize their work, goals, and dreams above these responsibilities. Tribhanga didn’t fail to highlight the idea that women can also prioritize their work, her interest above all. Despite being a dark comedy, it does give away a meaningful message. But the message fails to leave a long time impact on you because of poor execution. The ending does not give you a proper closure, but the movie leads you in a direction of a beautiful journey of the relation between a mother and a daughter.