Babita Singh Reporting

காவல் அதிகாரியாக இருக்கும் பபிதா சிங் (நிமிஷா சஜயன்) பணியிடத்தில் தன் நலனைப் பார்க்காமல், பிறருக்காகவே ஒவ்வொன்றையும் யோசிக்கிறார். இரண்டு வாரம் விடுமுறை கிடைத்தால், தன் கணவரின் சகோதரியின் வளைகாப்பு நிகழ்வுக்குச் சென்றுவிடலாம் எனத் திட்டமிடுகிறார். ஆனால், விடுப்பு கிடைப்பதிலும் சில சிக்கல்கள் எழுகின்றன. மற்றொரு காவல் அதிகாரி செய்த தவற்றைத் தன்னுடைய தவறென ஒப்புக்கொண்டு இரண்டு வாரம் சஸ்பெண்ட் ஆகிறார் பபிதா சிங். இந்த இடைவெளியில் கணவரின் சகோதரி வளைகாப்புக்காக ஊருக்குச் செல்கிறார் பபிதா சிங். ஆனால், அங்கு பபிதாவின் பள்ளிக்கால நெருங்கிய நண்பர் மர்மமான முறையில் மரணமடைகிறார். அவருடைய மரணத்துக்குப் பின்னிருக்கும் காரணங்களை பபிதா சிங் அலசுவதே இந்த பிரைம் வீடியோ படத்தின் கதை.

A young woman is visiting her in-laws for the first time. She’s eager to impress them. She cooks, cleans, runs the house. She’s hurt by their jibes but tries not to show it. Her husband is mild-mannered but thin-skinned; she has to apologise for pulling his leg. Their lovemaking is awkward. She puts her interests on hold, but it isn’t enough. Slowly, she comes to a boil. She’s played by Nimisha Sajayan. The film is The Great Indian Kitchen. Or is it Babita Singh Reporting? It’s a little strange to watch Sajayan, one of the best actors in India today, undergo similar trials and humiliations to ones she endured five years ago, in her most celebrated role. Ambiecka Pandit’s Hindi film is a world removed from Jeo Baby’s Malayalam drama. But Sajayan’s Babita is a close cousin to her unnamed wife in that film, a silent sufferer until all the silence is wrung out of her.

At a time when the diary of police procedurals is cluttered with gravity-defying cops and preachy social commentaries masquerading as investigative dramas, Babita Singh reports with a quiet yet telling subversion. The biting social critique tells us how our society tolerates a woman’s professional ambition only on the condition of absolute domestic continuity. Her career must remain invisible to the men of the house; it cannot cost them their hot meals or their sense of absolute supremacy. It captures how this cycle is policed not just by men, but by the matriarchs of the family, the mothers and sisters-in-law. Of course, there is a murder investigation as well, but it works as a narrative camouflage. The mystery lies in decoding the pervasive patriarchy.

Babita is trying to climb the ladder in the police force, taking up a job she earns following her cop-father’s death. She is married to Sharad, who prods her to take a leave from work to return to their native village. Upon their arrival, she bumps into a childhood friend, Bansi, who’s found dead the next day. While investigating his death, the domestic tensions nearly consume her. Nimisha Sajayan stands tall in a superb, intense performance in a tailor-made role, navigating her dual identities as a cop with low self-esteem and an ill-treated wife to a conservative man. Though she’s increasingly being stereotyped in gendered parts that take on misogyny, it is compensated for by how craftily the story is woven.

“Baby tu best hain,” Nimisha Sajayan’s junior cop Babita often gets this consolation-prize of a compliment whenever she keeps her own needs aside to fulfill the wishes of others in Babita Singh Reporting. The character, written by Amita Vyas for a film directed by Ambiecka Pandit, is meek and unobtrusive. She was employed in the police force on compassionate grounds after her father died on duty. It’s a job she feels she didn’t earn and she moves around as if she is reminding herself that every day.

‘Tu best hai, Baby.’ This oft-paid compliment to police officer Babita Singh aka Baby comes at the price of bending over backwards for her self-serving superior at work. The reason why she lets him throw her under the bus is to meet her family and society’s constant expectations. Caught in a perverse cycle of people-pleasing both professionally and personally, Baby barely realises its damage to her psyche until an unfortunate incident throws her off balance and sets free a rebellion long in the making.

A suspended police officer returns to her hometown to find her childhood friend murdered. The Sudip Sharma (Paatal Lok, Kohrra) voice is instantly recognisable in Prime Video’s latest original film, Babita Singh Reporting. Sharma serves as producer on the film, directed by Ambeicka Pandit (Black Warrant) and written by Amita Vyas. The world, atmosphere, and ‘vibe’ are immediately familiar, and not just because this is yet another moody crime drama—the staple genre of the streaming age. Officer Babita Singh AKA Baby (a terrific Nimisha Sajayan) is, in spirit, the rookie cousin of Paatal Lok’s Hathiram Chaudhary. Like him, she’s an underestimated, overlooked cop who’s determined and recklessly brave. Self-destructive as it may be, she isn’t capable of looking the other way or, as Hathiram would say, putting naukri over duty. But unlike the tired, jaded Hathiram, Babita is the wet-behind-the-ears junior officer at the very start of her career. This film is the origin story of her becoming.