It’s delightfully desi

Manpriya Singh

Any series that’s let you in on who’s committed the crime in the first few minutes is not banking on who dunnit premise. Nor does Your Honor, currently airing on SonyLiv. Initially, it’s a little taxing on the imagination that any adaptation of the Israeli series Kvodo could actually transport you to Civil Lines, Pritam Nagar, Model Town or the CRPF colony in Ludhiana. But it does and how, starting right with the upright sessions judge Jimmy Sheirgill playing Bishan Khosla, a single father in reckoning for promotion as a High Court judge.

The writer Ishan Trivedi can take a clear bow for not subscribing to Indian cinema’s over the top idea of honesty and etching out Jimmy’s character with the darkest shades of grey. “If judge will commit a crime himself, then who will judge him,” he says to a questioning Mita Vashisht, a seasoned woman cop Kiran Sekhon, who is surprised by the fact that a judge should bother about an expired certificate or two of his vehicle.

It’s the same guy whose moral compass will sway upside down in the next few minutes as he discovers the one involved in hit and run accident is his son Abeer Khosla (Pulkit Makol). “Mujhse jo ho saka main karunga,” he is the judge who protects the law till he has to bend the law, though he can’t get over the fact that his only child left a man dying on the road.

It takes the end of the first episode or two to figure out that the narrative is banking on a slow-reveal script, the sub-plots that unfold and the resulting drama that unravels. Which it does, especially when the one run over happens to be the son of a gangster Satbir Mudki.

There are a few departures from logic in the script but nothing that can’t be ironed out by the performances. Varun Badola as the CRPF guy Kashi Samthar and Jimmy’s old friend nails the Bhojpuri accent.

And even though the disclaimer does try to wash its hands off any resemblance whatsoever, but the script has enough references to the reality. It’s a refreshing change to come across vehicles registered as PB10 rather than the usual MH series. For those familiar with the topography of Ludhiana are likely to find ample references to Civil Lines, Pritam Nagar, Model Town maybe spot a familiar shop or two too. And of course the Punjab’s highway, foggy mornings and the fact that it’s cultural landscape is just as much defined by migrants from Bihar and UP as the native Punjabis. Several issues faced by them fall into stereotypes that if they are poor migrants, they must be inclined towards crime. Or, stem from the fact that they in fact, have been exploited. "Without them Punjab can't be Punjab, our roads, buildings and agriculture nothing can happen without them," the dialogue is spewed to an applauding court room.The only person that Jimmy Shergeill has to share the applause is with Mita Vashisht as the raw and real woman cop.

There is a break from the feverish pace that unfolds in India-centric crime thriller series and the jarring background score.

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