Tanaav 2 follows the Tanaav-Fauda canon faithfully

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The plotline of this web series has to be obviously follow both its November 2022 prequel and the original of the series, Fauda, which was made in Israel. The Indian adaptation obviously is about Kashmir versus Pakistan / ISIS / terrorists / separatists / Indian traitors, all of whom want to destroy India’s integrity.

I am told that the series is a faithful reconstruction of Fauda (which was about Israel’s enemies) but I must say (as I said in the review of the original in Dec. 2022) that Sudhir Mishra seems hell-bent on humanizing the wrongdoers to a considerable and needless extent. I wonder if Fauda did that, but even if it did, those baddies and their families were hailing from neighboring inimical countries, not a part of India itself. Over here, a true patriotic Indian couldn’t care less about the feelings of such dangerous forces, and we know that the families, however close, must expect the consequences if their members go wayward.

That said, over here, a very significant chunk of Kashmiris are shown opposing India and the governmental agencies, including the cops, military and espionage forces. The extent of this subversion would seem incredible (as it did in Season 1) but for one personal realization: my recent visit to Kashmir saw the same sentiments expressed by many a denizen about India and the ruling forces, even while admitting that business had burgeoned multifold, and ditto safety, after the scrapping of Article 370!!

The story of Kabir (Manav Vij) playing a complex character with a complex (!!), who has returned to work after personal trauma, and his dogged determination to annihilate the nation’s enemies continues here in full force. He rattles his boss, Jagjit (Rajat Kapoor), antagonizes colleagues and Jagjit by often defying protocol and flies into a vindictive rage when innocent and determined colleague Vikrant (Arbaaz Khan) is killed.

Also festering in Dr. Farah (Ekta Kaul)’s psyche is Kabir’s supposed betrayal after he had an affair with her, and the love that Junaid (Shashank Arora) has for her, even as he goes about his business of working for a setup named Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, that is fighting for Kashmir’s “freedom”. Fareed (Gaurav Arora), son of the orgnaization’s late founder Mir, has returned from Syria with an agenda and has pledged to cause untold harm to Kashmir, India as a country and the forces of law and is thus on a personal mission—also to kill Kabir and family. Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, shown as ‘moderate’ separatists, does everything to control him but to no avail.

Meanwhile, Kabir must protect his estranged family, Jagjit must occasionally oblige his Pakistani counterpart, Shabbir Malik (Danish Hussain) whose son has arraigned himself with Fareed, and Fareed’s family is also adversely affected. And so on…

As a series, Tanaav 2 works a shade better than the earlier season, and shares the same virtues and effective performances, especially from Manav Vij, Rajat Kapoor, Danish Hussain, Ekta Kaul, Arbaaz Khan, Gaurav Arora, Satyadeep Misra and Shashank Arora. A good point in the writing is the occasional use of the Kashmiri language that makes things more ‘real’—the subtitles are there to help out anyway. Technically, it is upbeat just like the earlier season, but the present season has half the number of episodes and the story remains more incomplete, so to speak.

Rating: ***1/2

SonyLIV presents Applause Entertainment’s Tanaav 2  Produced by: Sameer Nair, Deepak Segal & Siddharth Khaitan  Directed by: Sudhir Mishra & E. Niwas  Created by: Avi Issacharoff & Lior Raz (the Israeli series Fauda), Adhir Bhatt, Ishan Trivedi & Sudhir Mishra Music: Karel Antonin  Starring: Arbaaz Khan, Rajat Kapoor, M.K. Raina, Manav Vij, Kabir Bedi, Ekta Kaul, Sukhmani Sadana, Danish Husain, Mir Sarwar, Gaurav Arora, Shashank Arora, Satyadeep Misra, Soni Razdan, Arslan Goni, Mikail Gandhi, Swati Kapoor, Junaid Khan & others