After years of watching serials stretched over hundreds of episodes simply to replay the same emotional situations, an eight-episode series feels positively refreshing. Picture this: a lazy Sunday afternoon, the summer heat refusing to budge, a pizza delivery on its way accompanied by those gloriously prohibited soft drinks. You and your latest romantic interest collapse onto the sofa, switch on Musafir Café, and promise yourselves not to do anything else for the next four hours. If nothing else, it is an entertaining way to test the tempo of your relationship. For those inclined to overthink stories—as I inevitably do—it even becomes a curious form of edutainment.
Coming from an era of soap operas that were often sentimental mush, I was hoping for something different from a modern drama. There were two things I loved about the Musafir Café, a half hour slot of 8 episodes of season 1. I am more used to season one running to 300 plus episodes. A sigh of genuine relief comes out of me. Thank God for the shorter version of drama and that too from a book. That is the second thing that I loved about this series, because it is an adaptation of book by Divya Prakash Dubey titled “Musafir Café.
My first instinct was to reach for the book in Amazon.in but sadly you need to pre-order it. Anyway, I just checked out the series hoping against hope for something to write home about. Here was a series showing promises but turned out to be diluted mixed version of Friends series and Santa Barbara. Casualness of former’s making friends and latter’s complexity of relationship building seems to be beautifully translated to Indian scenario. Santa Barbara was sadly the one Soap Opera that I watched randomly owing to my return from college collided with the show time. If not, I was stuck with MTV and V channel music countdown.
Growing up in a large family often felt like living inside a Star Plus soap opera—though thankfully not quite that emotionally dramatic. I have seen relationship of couples who have kept fighting with each other but never thinking of breaking the relationship, that is lived reality for me. Now such person as I, get to see an Indian series where there are no heroine or hero, give me some time to settle please!
Positive points of limited series are very encouraging because it right for bingeing and good as a daily timed dose of the series. I binged, mighty proud of that. I loved the series, “Maamla Legal Hai” legal and humorous and right up my alley. But “Musafir Café” had a different feel to it. Halfway through the series, I realised I was no longer evaluating the characters. I was examining myself. I try to be modern and open-minded yet at heart I just turn up as your lost diary of your agonising Phopi(Paternal Aunt).
For me, intimacy and legal recognition are not identical. A legal institution may provide social recognition, rights and responsibilities, but it does not create emotional truth. The series prompted me to think about the distinction between the two.
Watching a series never separates the story from the storyteller or the viewer. Good storytelling quietly pulls us into a conversation—not only with the characters, but also with the mind that created them. I soon found myself asking what felt emotionally true and what did not. The friendship and relationship doldrum were placed in nice centre-to-left of Soap Opera audience. But the pull towards the book was very strong for me.
To rewrite the entire map of Dil and Mil emotional plot to the more amicable relationship present series. The modern mother still insisting for marriage while willing to compromise by pending the event. That seemed real but doesn’t happen like that! The percentage of people who don’t get married but hang around in a relationship or keep moving on in life are not that many. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist they do!
Live-in relationships are not something I have personally felt drawn towards. Even while watching the series, I found myself taking time to understand that choice rather than immediately accepting or rejecting it. I wanted to be fair—not merely to the characters, but to the people who make such choices in real life. As someone who approaches relationships from a more traditional perspective, the question before me was not whether a live-in relationship is right or wrong. I was interested in whether the emotional journey felt truthful. The truth rarely has a finite and definitive view.
This series does much like a Jalchitra—a water painting whose outlines shift even as they remain recognisable. Given the complexity of truth itself, every work of fiction asks us to believe in the world it creates. A realist film or series makes an unspoken promise to its audience: its characters are not superheroes, nor will they suddenly behave in extraordinary ways merely to surprise us.
The emotional world remains faithful to its own internal logic. That is why I become uneasy when difference is introduced merely for the sake of appearing different. The guilt surrounding the live-in relationship, however, felt authentic. It acknowledged the tension between private choices and public expectations without pretending that such conflicts simply disappear.
Especially, the neighbour flat nosy aunty who pokes and judges your trash. In a society that venerates marriage in a pedestal while encouraging to continue in a relationship of abuse and disrespect for what the people around you would think, I would say it refreshing series on relationship forged under difficult circumstances.
The series skirted around “what people would think” thought; but then, we are bold in our closed doors right?! The disapproved act once we shut off the world no longer feels like a decision of the world but that of the individuals involved. I am not against dating, but I would stop at getting physical about it. But then if others chose not to, I am not flabbergasted I accept the person’s choice. On that aspect it was not that hard to see this series as someone’s personal choice.
I have a broad mind but not spilling over. The emotional intensity didn’t arise organically from what I had understood about their relationship. When the Chander and Sudha don’t logically discuss the parting but overdo the emotional to excess. I thought Sudha would walk out and leave a text message saying the relationship over between them. But okay, yes, they say it face-to-face then why so much excess emotions, when the relationship was an open one.
Why am I so invested in the character? The only answer I could give is that seated in my secluded citadel I pass judgement on people’s choice when not being sure of my own if I were in that position. The whole colour of the matter changes when the choice is left to me to make. I even now believe that relationship should be open and continue even after we move on once the relationship is broken. But sadly, that is not the case in real-life. The bitter after taste from all those disagreement and oppression never lets you see the partner is fair light ever again.
This is me, critiquing the Indian series, I am much more gentle with other Asian series. Maybe I set high standards on stories and translation of the story into theatrical representation. If you ask me to act most probably it would have been a flop on universal time. It is not me who was given the script to play a role and interpretation of the character’s role is entirely the actors part. I must say the actors did well was just good enough to be realistic.
I loved the fact that all characters talked about their dreams and reaching out to it whimsically. That part I really loved it. Sudha was a great motivator for Chander; Chander encourages Preeti to make her choices based on her inner instinct for her dreams. The café backdrop was so cool, artist in me was over-the-moon about it. That part of series sounded so encouraging and positive. The whimsical part of the human dreams was beautifully portrayed and was the honest part of the series that I loved.
But, I must say that Films give you images but books one provides our own images. Mind you these images are not sharp as the Film because of its fluidity some parts of the series that I had difficulty accepting could be done without shying away from it. Yet I, sometimes feel that tele-series should be based on written works and not extempore written scenes on the set.
Sadly, I never just see a series and go thumbs up or thumbs down. I sit and dissect the series with my aesthetic of conservative Chennai girl stuck in the outdated kingdom of traditionalism while trying to be open-minded with restraint. That way, it can be hard sometimes to be fair when stuck in outdated thoughts and ideology.
In the end, Musafir Café did not change my outlook on relationships. What it changed was the nature of my questions. Instead of asking whether I agreed with the characters’ choices, I began asking whether I understood the emotional truth behind them. Perhaps that is why I rarely finish a series when the credits roll. The conversation simply moves from the screen into my own thoughts.
Credit: Convo with Mira, the Goosey! (AI Powered ChatGPT)
Itinerant Storyteller 