The first season of Rohit Jugraj’s Chamak was a celebration of the music of Punjab couched in a fictionalised version of the murders of legendary folk singer Amar Singh Chamkila and his wife Amarjot. (The unsolved killings have also inspired Kabir Singh Chaudhary’s documentary Mehsampur and Imtiaz Ali’s feature Chamkila.)
For the Sony LIV series, Jugraj imagined a child of the slain Tara Singh (Gippy Grewal) and his wife (Sharan Kaur), who was taken to Canada. The kid grew to be the rebellious Kaala (Paramvir Singh Cheema), who had to return to Punjab to escape arrest. In India, he befriended Jazz (Isha Talwar). With just a faded photo of his parents, Kaala set out to find out what happened to them.
The music company co-founded by his father and four friends was now controlled by Pratap Deol (Manoj Pahwa). By the end of the first season, Kaala had revealed his identity, sought fame as a singer and was arrested on drug charges, indicating that he was up against a formidable foe.
The first season had interesting characters, such as the reclusive music guru Jugal (Suvinder Vicky), his daughter Lata (Akasa Singh) – who loves Kaala – and Pratap’s gay son Guru (Mohit Malik). There were also a journalist (Kuljeet Singh) obsessed with Tara Singh and Kaala’s hitman buddy Jagga (Prince Kanwaljit Singh). The six-episode season ended on an intriguing cliffhanger. But Chamak: The Conclusion is lacklustre.
There isn’t much character development. The plot gets lost in a maze of Succession-like family drama, with Guru coming into his own and slowly edging out his siblings – the talentless yet ambitious Naaz (Ankita Goraya) and the greedy Jai (Dhanveer Singh). Kaala gets a foot in the company door, which causes resentment in the family. A hawk-like debtor hovers over them. All these complications are plain boring.
Kaala, who was so charismatic in the first season, now wears a wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression as he and Jagga cook up a hare-brained scheme to kill Tara Singh’s alleged killer. Jazz, previously a feisty woman, turns into a pathetic victim of her failures. Lata waits outside Kaala’s door, while he treats her like dirt.
The only female who keeps her strength and influence is the music company’s manager Rocky (Navneet Nishan), called “Paaji” because she is no-nonsense. The chameleonic Manoj Pahwa dominates the show. Mohit Malik, who gets as much if not more screen time than Cheema, tends to get hammy.
An inordinate amount of time is taken up by a plan for an IPO and Deol senior’s concern about the Mumbai film industry appropriating Punjabi music. However, Kaala’s career-defining hit is something about a “ganda banda” – not too inspiring.
A few of these disparate strands might have amounted to something worthwhile had Jugraj (who is co-writer with S Fakira) hadn’t taken such a scattershot approach. The music that was the main attraction now takes a backseat, though the songs playing the background are excellent. With such a long list of composers, they had better be.
Also read:
In music-themed ‘Chamak’, looking for the ‘spirit of Punjab’ beyond its stereotypes
