Directed by Rupinder Chahal, Balwinder Singh Janjua, and Jimmy Singh, “Cat,” tells us a tale of resilience where we see a common man fighting for his family and defying the odds to survive in a greed-laden world. The best thing about “Cat,” undoubtedly, is the gripping performance by Randeep Hooda, who plays the protagonist Gurnam Singh. He is ably supported by Suvinder Vicky, Dakssh Ajit Singh, Jaideep Singh, Hasleen Kaur, Kavya Thapar, Sukhwinder Chahal and others. Where “Cat” falters is in its screenplay, which takes a way-too-convenient route, which dissipates the suspense at times and fails to complement the fabulous performances of the actors. So, let’s see if Gurnam Singh is able to save his family and solve the mystery behind his parents’ untimely demise.
Spoilers Ahead
‘Cat’ Plot Summary: What Is The Series About?
Gurnam Singh had raised his brother, Sunny, and his sister, Raman, after their parents had been murdered by terrorists. Gurnam was a mechanic, and he didn’t come from a financially strong background, but still, he made sure that his brother and sister had everything they needed and desired. After getting married, Raman settled in Canada while Sunny was still trying to crack the IELTS examination. Sunny wasn’t able to qualify for the examinations even after several attempts, and he decided to look for other ways of going to Canada. Sunny had started selling drugs with his lover, Sehar, so that he could earn enough money and give it to the middleman, who used to make people enter other countries illegally. But his plans were spoiled when he was caught by the police red-handed for drug trafficking at a rock concert. Gurnam visited every lawyer and begged in front of the officer in charge, Babita Masih, but to no avail. Everybody told him that his brother would have to serve a minimum of five years of imprisonment. Gurnam knew that he couldn’t let that happen, as such a blot had the potential to spoil the entire life of his brother.
Left with no other option, Gurnam was forced to seek help from a former acquaintance, Police Inspector Sehtab Singh, with whom he shared history, though they hadn’t been in touch for quite a few years. Sehtab Singh was the kind of man who was not loyal to anyone and who only looked out for his own profit. He knew that Gurnam Singh could be proved to be a valuable asset in the near future as he had been previously. He assured Gurnam that he would help him in letting his brother off the hook and asked him to be patient and wait for the right time. At a wedding, Sehtab Singh was insulted by SSP Kamlesh Arora and that hurt his ego severely. He decided to roll the dice and hatch a plan to turn the scales in his favor. Sehtab knew that the SSP was quite close to Madam Aulakh, the sitting MLA from the Sialgarh area. At that wedding itself, he went and talked to Jaggi Pradhan, Madam Aulakh’s opponent, who was also contesting the election from the same seat. For years, Jaggi had tried to topple Aulakh’s government, but he had been unable to do so. Sehtab Singh told Jaggi Pradhan that they could work in tandem and get what they had always aspired for.
Who Had Killed Gurnam’s Parents?
After Jaggi Pradhan came on board, Sehtab approached Gurnam and told him that he had a way to get his brother released from prison and get all his charges quashed. He told Gurnam that it was because of Madam Aulakh that young boys and girls got involved in the dirty business of drug trafficking. Sehtab hid his real intentions and told Gurnam that all he wanted was to clean up Punjab and make it a drug-free state. He asked Gurnam to once again be a “Cat” and help the police achieve that feat. Gurnam had no reason to distrust Sehtab Singh, and he agreed to come on board and be a part of his so-called noble cause. The plan was that Gurnam would start working for Madam Aulakh, breach her inner circle, win her trust, and, when she least expected it, deliver the final blow. Sehtab also arranged for his brother to go to Canada, and he started feeling even more indebted and pledged his allegiance to him.
In the second episode of “Cat,” we are taken back in time when Punjab was being plagued by an insurgency and the Khalistani movement was at its peak. A terrorist named Baljit Singh Rajpuria used to smuggle weapons from Pakistan and provide them to the locals to wage war on Indian soil. Gurnam, whose real name was Gary, had an uncle named Mastaan who also worked for Rajpuria. Gurnam’s father, Harbans, caught Mastaan red-handed when he was going to cross the border with Rajpuria. Harbans was an innocent man, and he wasn’t aware of how the system functioned or the kind of corruption that prevailed. Harbans went and informed Sehtab Singh about what he had seen and begged him to come and intervene. Sehtab came and confronted both Baljit Singh and Mastaan and warned them to stop their seditious activities. Harbans asked Sehtab to arrest Rajpuria, but the police officer had a different game plan in his mind. Instead of arresting the perpetrator, Sehtab Singh killed Harbans and took all the money from Baljit Singh as a fee for sparing his life. Gurnam’s mother arrived at a very wrong time and witnessed Baljit Singh Rajpuria and Mastaan burying her husband. She was also killed by them, as they couldn’t afford to leave any witnesses. Gurnam, who had come to drop off his mother, had stopped a distance and was repairing his bicycle, when he heard the gunshots being fired. He saw Baljit and Mastaan coming out of the shed, and he believed that they had killed his parents, as he had no clue about the fact that it was Sehtab Singh’s doing.
Gurnam killed his own uncle and joined the rebels because he had to hide from the police, and he didn’t know of a better place to go. But soon, Gurnam realized what he had signed on to. To take revenge for the death of their leader, Swaroop Singh, the rebel gang stopped a bus and killed all the non-Sikhs that were on it. Gurnam was caught by the police after that incident, and that was the first time he met Sehtab Singh. Sehtab asked him to be a “Cat,” i.e., a spy, and provide information to the police about the terrorists. Gurnam was released from jail, and he once again went back and joined the terrorist gang, though this time with the intention to leak their information and get them killed. One by one, Sehtab kept eliminating the gangs with the help of Gurnam, and in return, the Punjab government kept promoting him. Gurnam also helped the police catch Baljit Singh Rajpuria. He wanted to kill the murderer of his parents with his own hands, but Sehtab didn’t let that happen. Baljit struck a deal with Sehtab, while he was in prison and agreed to pay the corrupt Police officer a sum of ten lakhs in return for his freedom. Sehtab killed an innocent man and planted false evidence so that the world might think that it was Baljit who had died in the encounter. Gurnam was also deceived by the false narrative, and he thought that he had gotten his revenge. Sehtab gave Gary a new identity, and he started a new life with his brother and sister.
Was Gurnam Able To Win The Trust Of Madam Aulakh?
Gurnam was sent to prison on purpose, as Sehtab wanted him to get close to Lakhwinder Singh, a.k.a. Laadi, who was the right-hand man of Madam Aulakh. Gurnam saved Laadi’s life, and he became his trusted ally after that day. The first thing that Gurnam did after starting to work for Laadi was to get Mukhtiyaar arrested. Mukhtiyaar was the person who handled the import of drug consignments from Pakistan. Heera, Mukhtiyaar’s stepson, hated him, and Gurnam used their enmity to his advantage. Once Mukhtiyaar went to jail, Gurnam started handling the import. Laadi started trusting Gurnam blindly, and he introduced him to Shemsher Singh, who had been with Madam Aulakh since the very beginning of her career. Gurnam got to know about a big drug deal that was going to happen soon, where hundreds of kilos of production were going to take place under the supervision of Laadi. Gurnam informed about it to Babita Masih, who was his point of contact while he was working undercover. Sehtab saw an opportunity to move a step further and deal yet another blow to the empire of Madam Aulakh. The Punjab Special Task Force got a whiff of the deal that was going to happen and decided to conduct a raid at Laadi’s house. Sehtab, Chandan, and Babita had not foreseen it, and they had to improvise in order to not let STF spoil their plan. Laadi was celebrating her daughter’s birthday when the STF came to arrest him. Though Laadi was able to escape from there, he realized that Gurnam was working for the police. Gurnam had no choice other than to kill Laadi, of whom he had grown fond. Gurnam was taken into custody by the STF officer, Bikramjeet Singh, but Sehtab arranged for his bail so that their secret doesn’t come out in the open. Later, when Bikramjeet Singh’s investigation became an obstacle, Sehtaj killed the STF officer and put the blame on Madam Aulakh.
Gurnam, after the death of Laadi, took his position, and Madam Aulakh blamed SSP Kamlesh Arora for his negligence. Gurnam’s next target was the faithful Shamsher Singh and his son, Monty Singh. Gurnam knew that it was impossible to frame Shamsher, as everybody knew that he was a man of honor and that he could never break the trust of Madam Aulakh. That is when he got to know that Monty liked Madam Aulakh’s daughter, Kimi. Kimi Aulakh was a rich-spoilt brat who wanted to get married to a famous musician named Rocky. When things got out of hand, Madam Aulakh revealed to her that she couldn’t do so as Rocky was her stepbrother. Madam Aulakh’s husband had raped a local performer named Rani, and Rocky was her son. Madam Aulakh had gotten her husband killed, and she had hired Baljit Singh Rajpuria to do the job—the same man who had killed Gurnam’s parents. After knowing about the difficult past life of her mother and that she couldn’t ever be with Rocky, Kimi felt disheartened and greatly disturbed. She started drinking on a regular basis, and during the same time, Gurnam started provoking Monty so that he did something that not only tarnished his image but also put a blot on the reputation of Shamsher Singh. Monty couldn’t take the fact that Kimi rejected his proposal, so in a fit of rage, he molested her. He did what Gurnam had expected him to do. Gurnam informed Madam Aulakh about the incident. Shemsher was devastated, and he couldn’t believe that his son could stoop so low. Shamsher asked Monty to leave his house, and he felt so distressed after bizarre developments that he had a heart attack. Meanwhile, Mukhtiyaar came out of the prison, and he got to know that Gurnam was a police informant. He saw Gurnam and Babita together at a fair, and he took pictures of them as evidence. He took those pictures to Shamsher and told him that he was deceived by the very person who pretended to be his trusted ally. Shamsher went to confront SSP and Sehtab about it and told them to take immediate action and terminate the traitor. Shamsher had no clue that it was actually Sehtab who was the ringmaster of the whole circus and was operating from behind the curtains. Sehtab asked Shamsher to come to a particular location and confront Babita and Gurnam himself. Sehtab killed Shamsher there and made it look like he had committed suicide. After the death of the loyal Shamsher, Gurnam rose in the ranks and became the right-hand man of Madam Aulakh, just like Sehtab had foreseen.
Was Sehtab Singh Able To Arrest Gurnam? Is Gurnam Singh Dead Or Alive?
Mukhtiyaar was Mastaan’s son and Gurnam’s first cousin. Gurnam knew about it, and before getting him killed, he made sure that he knew it too. Mukhtiyaar’s wife, his mistress, Sweety, together with Heera and Saaba, murdered Mukhtiyaar as they wanted to end the torture they were being subjected to. All this while, Gurnam had thought that Sehtab was working for the betterment of Punjab, and he was unaware of his real intentions. Gurnam didn’t like breaking the trust of Madam Aulakh, who had decided that she would get Kimi married to him. Things took a dramatic turn when Gurnam learned that the murderer of his parents was still alive. From the Aulakh Rice Mill, the drug was sent to Canada through a port in Gujarat. The invoice was created in the name of one Mr. Bill, who was the owner of the company that bought everything. Mr. Bill was none other than Baljit Singh Rajpuria. When he came to India, Sehtab met him and told him that instead of Madam Aulakh, he would now do business with the future MLA of the area, Jaggi Pradhan. Sehtab killed Madam Aulakh and made Gurnam feel that he had done a favor for him and saved his life. Madam Aulakh had seen so much in her life that she wasn’t scared of dying, but what hurt her was that Gurnam betrayed her trust. She blurted out the word “traitor” before dying, and it made Gurnam feel horrible about himself. When Gurnam was being taken from the crime scene, he saw Baljit coming and meeting Sehtab. Gurnam lost his temper and fired at Baljit. Gurnam escaped from there and went into hiding, though he promised himself that he wouldn’t rest unless and until he took revenge for the murder of his parents. In the last episode of the series, “Cat,” we saw that Gurnam once again attacked Baljit, and though he was not able to kill him, he got to know that it was Sehtab who had killed his father and not Baljit, as he had thought. Sehtab was a shrewd and conniving man, and he asked Baljit to call his contacts in Canada and take Gurnam’s brother, Sunny, into their custody. By doing so, Sehtab Singh forced Gurnam to come out of his burrow. Sehtab told Gurnam that he didn’t want to kill him, and when Gurnam agreed to what he said, his brother would also be safe. The plan was that Sehtab and Baljit would go to Canada, and Gurnam would be put in jail for murdering Madam Aulakh. Sehtab had a flight to catch, and after settling everything, he asked Chandan and Babita to take over.
Towards the end of the series, “Cat,” we saw that Gurnam decided to take one last chance and made a lucrative offer to Chandan Kumar. He asked the corrupt cop to let him go and fake his death in return for a huge amount of cash. Much like his boss, even Chandan Kumar’s loyalty lay where he saw a monetary gain. He called Sehtab Singh, who was at the airport with Baljit Rajpuria, and informed him that Gurnam was killed while trying to escape. Sehtab had no reason not to trust his colleague. Gurnam used the cash that he had seen in Madam Aulakh’s village house to pay Chandan Kumar as he had promised. Season 1 of “Cat” ends on a cliffhanger, and it also sets the premise for upcoming seasons. We see that Gurnam Singh, having completely changed his appearance, crosses the border, probably to contact the people who used to facilitate the entry of illegal migrants into countries like Canada. Gurnam Singh was once again a “Cat,” only this time, he was not working for Sehtab Singh but against him. We will get to know in time (presuming the fact that there would be more seasons of “Cat”) if he is able to save his brother and take revenge for the death of his parents.
See More: ‘Cat’ Season 2: Expectations – Will Gurnam Go To Canada To Take Revenge From Sehtab Singh?
