'Diplomacy dies at the Akhtars' dinner table'

A conversation with creator Shibani Akhtar, alongwith key members of the Dabba Cartel team, on what making it about middle-class women treading the path of crime brought to the story

- KARTIK BHARDWAJ

SHIBANI Akhtar answers "Ozark," when asked about her favourite drug drama. Her first show as a creator, Dabba Cartel, seems to have one similarity with the American crime drama: ordinary people in extraordinary (also dangerous) situations. A pan-Indian cast of Shabana Azmi, Jyotika, Shalini Pandey, Anjali Anand, and Nimisha Sajayan team up to cook more than just food in this thriller series, which also stars Sai Tamhankar, Jisshu Sengupta, Lillete Dubey and Gajraj Rao, among others. Shibani, along with husband and producer Farhan Akhtar, director Hitesh Bhatia and Netflix India content VP Monika Shergill, talk about how the idea for the show shaped up, what the female gaze brings to crime fiction, and what the Akhtars discuss on the dinner table.

Excerpts: Shibani, you have taken a quintessential Mumbai local thing which is the 'Dabba' and put it in the high-stakes world of a drug drama. Is it this fusion that excited you?