Chamak

What can be more fascinating than a glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes in the Punjabi music industry? Invariably reverberating with rocking beats, it has deep fault lines that are exposed every now and then. So, can a series helmed by Rohit Jugraj, director of Punjabi films like ‘Sardarji’, its sequel and ‘Jatt James Bond’, truly offer us an expose? Or deep insight? Well, the series, the first season of which dropped in 2023, may not be an unsettling reflection of its grim side, but has its strengths. Before we fault the musical series for unspooling like a thriller in its concluding part, we also need to understand that violence has marred Punjab’s irrepressible musical heart time and again. Thus, this one-of-its-kind musical series fictionalises the brutal killing of Amar Singh Chamkila and moves forward from there. It has violence and revenge running as a recurring thread, not too far away from the truth of the musical world where extortion calls are a norm and gun culture not uncommon.

I admire ambition. But ambition without direction can be like an ice cream cone without the ice cream: hollow, weird, tasteless and sad. Sorry for the analogy, but I was left with a sticky cone in my hand after my ice cream scoop met the footpath last week and I’m still salty (not sugary) about it. It wasn’t even a waffle cone. Coming back to Chamak, rarely has so much ambition resulted in so little. It’s a miracle that this musical drama manages to be 12 episodes long without making a Punjab-sized dent in the OTT landscape. The series is disjointed and distracted, but it generously allows the viewer to be just as distracted. I found myself doing some chores, learning of Hollywood star Val Kilmer’s death, watching Real Madrid highlights and reading about the IPL — all of this while six episodes of Chamak: The Conclusion (the first 6 dropped in 2023) played in the background. But the empty cone, in this case, elicits sympathy. It’s a lot of production, money, writing, acting, culture, songs, sound. It’s hard not to feel for a show that works so hard to tell a story.

A year and a half later, we pick up back where Canada returned Kaala left viewers after being arrested in the Season 1 finale. Paramvir Singh Cheema’s Kaala has new innings and a new mission to accomplish in this musical revenge saga. While certain narratives from Season 1 move forward, others take you back as the series adds more unnecessary drama to the proceedings. The SonyLIV series, Chamak-The Conclusion, suffers from wanting to do too much but not knowing where to trim down the sprawling saga. Unpredictable singer Kaala (Cheema) reconciles with music label owner Pratap Singh Deol (Manoj Pahwa) after it is revealed he is Tara Singh’s (Gippy Grewal) son. As they prepare to take Teeja Sur to newer heights, internal conflicts and past histories threaten to derail everything. By the end of the six episodes, mostly all the characters have a rise and fall, not all of them satisfactory.