If there is one thing the success of Master of None should not have inspired, it is the kind of bland, done-to-death comedy that pokes fun at the cultural differences between Indians and Americans. Sadly, Netflix’s new show Brown Nation, directed by Abi Varghese, is just that: a shockingly vapid attempt at humour set in New York City and revolving around information technology company owner Hasmukh Parikh.
Hasmukh, played by Rajeev Verma, runs a small setup – all Indians but for one white man –that provides help with implementing a software called Citrus. Perennially hopeful, Hasmukh believes he is on the cusp of great success once the next version of Citrus comes along. Meanwhile, his staff can’t be bothered as they dream of success in Silicon Valley.
Hasmukh’s home situation is scarcely better. His wife Dimple (Shenaz Treasurywala, who now goes by Shenaz Treasury) is passing through a mid-life crisis battling feelings of inadequacy at her failing acting career. Her father, known only as Papaji (Kapil Bawa), is a difficult man who loves the dog more than Hasmukh. There is also Hyder (Remy Munasifi), perhaps the only interesting character on the show – a freelance businessman who goes anywhere opportunity takes him.
Apart from Verma and Munasifi, none of the cast earns points in the acting department, with Treasury especially ill-suited for her role. In one scene, she attends an audition for a music video in which she plays a wronged woman threatening her perpetrators with divine retribution. It’s a masterclass in hamming, made worse by Treasury’s poor grasp of Hindi pronunciation.
It’s not just the acting that is poor. The scripting and plotting in the series, directed by Abi Verghese, are a chore too. For a sitcom in 2016 to lack coherence is an unpardonable crime. If the makers of Brown Nation had hoped to do a version of Everyone Loves Raymond for Indian-Americans, they fail miserably.
One moment Papaji is bad-mouthing Hasmukh for losing the dog, the next he is hit by a runaway golf club. I kept wondering if the characters were caricatures because they certainly did not hew to any realism. But this is no self-conscious comedy either. Most of the characters are serious about their situations, and it is up to the viewer to glean whatever subterranean winking the makers are indulging in.
I came away the unhappiest with Omi Vaidya playing the cloying, spineless employee who says yes to everything. Vaidya, being himself, rescues the role somewhat but why waste his immense talent in a part that is vastly exaggerated even for a comedy? He plays Balan, a Tamil Brahmin who brings his own, undoubtedly smelly food to the office and, in a poor imitation of the classic scene from 3 Idiots, commits a public blunder by playing a Salman Khan tape during an important video conference meeting.
Master of None works because it brilliantly presents traditional subcontinental concerns in a hip and contemporary idiom. Dev, a New York City resident like Hasmukh, is a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker. His Indianness merely informs, not drowns, his American identity. It’s a pity the same cannot be said for Brown Nation, a show so thoroughly Indian it is only fitting that Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms has partnered with it for a content-production deal.