What if someone someday decides to use the fantastic ‘dabba’ (tiffin box) network popular in Mumbai to start a drug business? Well, that is pretty much the story of Netflix’s new Hindi drama series, Dabba Cartel. Starring Shabana Azmi, Shalini Pandey, Jyothika, and Gajraj Rao, among others, the drama is women-centric and has thriller elements. So, how did four (later five) women start a drug cartel from a ‘dabba’ business? Let’s get into the details. Raji had started her food delivery business with her house help, Mala, to help out her husband financially. Hari was an employee at VivaLife Pharma, and his dream was to get promoted and move abroad with Raji. It had only been six months since he’d joined the company, and according to his colleagues, an employee was only sent abroad after they completed three to four years in the company. But Hari wanted to take a shortcut, and he realized that the only person who could vouch for him was his boss, Shankar. The company was in trouble after an OD case was registered in Punjab. The victim was a woman who was illegally prescribed a banned drug, Modella. The drug was produced by five pharma companies in India, and VivaLife was on the list. The company was under scrutiny, and Hari believed it was his time to be the underdog hero his boss needed.
Spoiler Alert
Why were Sheila and the gang in trouble?
It all started when Mala’s boyfriend, Santosh, threatened to leak her private video if she refused to sell drugs for him. Mala had the delivery addresses, and all she had to do was sneak in sachets of weeds in the tiffin boxes. Raji eventually discovered Mala’s secret, and so did the broker, Shahida, who helped them find a low-rent apartment. Raji had recently learned that she was pregnant, but Hari was not happy about it. He strictly told Raji that he would not be able to afford the expense of raising a child in Germany. When she found out about Mala’s weed business, she decided to directly talk to Santosh and decide on a cut. Shahida too joined the business, hoping to make some extra cash. The ‘dabba’ gang operated smoothly, and they made a decent profit out of the risk they took. But soon, Santosh suggested they sell MDMA for him. Since it was an expensive drug, the girls stood a chance to make more profit. Raji was hesitant; selling weed was one thing, but getting involved in hardcore drugs was a stretch for her. Desperate to have her video removed from Santosh’s phone, Mala threatened to wash the drug down the drain if Santosh failed to delete the video. Santosh obliged, but when Mala teased him, he blatantly said that someday he would show Kunni (Mala’s daughter) what Mala was up to. Mala was enraged, and she drained almost half of the packet into a sink.
Santosh attacked Mala, but Raji handled the situation with a knife in her hand. Santosh warned them that they would have to make up for the loss. Soon, Santosh’s boss, Chavan, arrived at their apartment. He was ready to kill the girls to satisfy his ego, but Raji’s mother-in-law, Sheila, came to their rescue. While she was not much of a talker, she had sharp eyes and had figured out Raji and Mala were up to something. Chavan was surprised when Sheila did not blink an eye when he pointed his gun at her. She explained that she’d retired from the business, but Chavan instructed her to get back to work to make up for the loss. After Chavan left, Sheila told Raji, Mala, and Shahida that she used to be Sultan Mirza’s (popular crime gang leader who operated in Mumbai) assistant thirty years ago. As someone who had seen criminal organizations up close, Sheila believed they did not have a choice and would have to oblige Chavan’s demand. Sheila had to find clients to sell the drugs to, and that was when she contacted her longtime best friend, Moushumi. She was still active in the underworld scene and was an MDMA dealer. She exclusively sold gangster Chacko’s supply, and when Sheila insisted she sell her stash, she declined. Sheila begged her to help her out; she had helped Moushumi in times of crisis, and she hoped her friend would help her find a way out for old times’ sake. Moushumi ultimately agreed, but she made it clear that her girls (sex workers) would not directly sell the drug; instead, they would gather addresses from their clients and hand them over to Sheila and her team to make the deliveries. Her only condition was that the day Chacko discovered there was another player in the market, she would resign.
Things went according to plan, and the girls managed to pay back Chavan. Sheila was clear from the beginning that she would deal with Chavan alone, and as it turned out, she had no intention of stopping the business; instead, she struck a deal with Chavan to expand the business even further in exchange for a larger cut. Chavan had struck gold, and he readily agreed to Sheila’s condition. Sheila did not tell the girls the entire truth; she knew Raji would not be on board, so she lied. She told the girls that Chavan threatened to destroy their lives if they refused to continue selling his product. While Mala and Shahida were happy about the cut, Raji experienced a moral dilemma. Sheila was determined to take business large-scale, and she came up with the idea of starting a ‘dabba’ delivery network. They employed gig workers to deliver the tiffin boxes to their client, and Mala was appointed the manager to ensure that the delivery partners did not mess up the order. The business was going well, but then Chacko found out about his competitor. Moushumi backed out, and Sheila was left with too much product and no clients.
Why did Varuna decide to help Sheila?
Since the gang had earned a huge amount of money in cash, they needed a place to store it. Shahida proposed that they use Varuna’s boutique to launder money. Shankar’s (VivaLife Pharma’s operational head) wife, Varuna, started the boutique after she took a break from her job at VivaLife Pharma. She missed being in the workforce, and the boutique was her way of proving that she was more than just a wife and a mother. Unfortunately, her boutique was running at a loss, and she barely had enough in her bank to continue the business. She was denied loans, and she had no choice but to pull the shutters. But then came Shahida with her plan, but at that moment, Varuna was ready to agree to anything to save her business. She was ready to launder the money for them, and she used the cash the very next day to make the outstanding payment to her vendor. As it so happened, immediately after Varuna came on board, Sheila lost her business thanks to Chacko. Sheila needed the money to pay back Chavan since she could not bring him business. But now that the money was gone, Chavan threatened to destroy their families. Sheila pressured Varuna to come up with a solution.
In the meantime, Varuna discovered that her husband had kept a secret from her. As it turned out, the CEO of VivaLife Pharma had suggested bringing Varuna back on the acquisition team, but Shankar had declined the offer without consulting Varuna. When she confronted him about it, he stated that he did what he thought was right. He wanted Varuna to be a full-time mother instead of signing up for a demanding job. Varuna believed it was not his call to make, and their conversation escalated into a heated argument. After Shankar shamed her for her failing business, Varuna took it up as a challenge to prove him wrong. She secretly browsed through his mail and discovered an email exchange between Shankar and Sheileja, the CEO, where they discussed that the amount of fentanyl found in their medication did not meet FDA standards. The exchange confirmed that the company was fully aware of their formulation, and Bhowmick Bose, the chemical engineer at VivaLife Pharma, was made a scapegoat to evade responsibility for their questionable lab tests and reports. Varuna took a picture of the exchange and offered to help Bhowmick, but in exchange, she needed his assistance. Since Sheila could not sell the MDMA she had in store, Varuna came up with the plan to ask Bhowmick to synthesize them a new drug that they could sell. Bhowmick was desperate because VivaLife Pharma had filed a malpractice case against him, but he was hesitant about inventing a narcotic drug. After considering his situation, Bhowmick agreed to the deal, but he wanted Varuna to hand over the picture of the email, which meant that she would have to expose her husband’s involvement as well. Varuna agreed to the deal, even though it was not an easy decision for her to make. She had become vengeful after Shankar insulted her and refused to talk to her with respect, and she prioritized saving her business over his reputation.
Did Raji manage to put an end to the business?
Bhowmick mixed MDMA and Modella to create a new drug that Sheila and her gang named “mithai” (sweets). They stole the last Modella stock that was left in the Thane factory. Hari was trying to protect Shankar in the hopes of a promotion, and he decided to hide the stock at the society’s Ganpati festival since he’d figured that the local police were following them. But he had no idea that his wife and her business associates would steal the stock and make “mithai” out of it. Bhowmick tried to walk away after creating the first batch, because his lawyer had stated that the picture of the email exchange was useless in court. But Sheila had a backup plan ready; she’d recorded Bhowmick in action, and she used the video to blackmail him. Bhowmick did not have much of a choice, and ultimately the final product was born.
Sheila was in her element; she finally felt like the don of Mumbai with a new product in hand and a huge market that she could target. She had craved to get back in action for the last thirty years, and she was finally doing the things that she’d mastered at a young age. “Mithai” was a success, and the best part was she could decide its price since she was the only one selling it. When Sheila handed Chavan his cut, he was a little surprised. He wanted to know what Sheila and her gang were up to, but she refused to answer him. She threatened to ruin his family if he tried to make things personal once again. She knew she was one of his best dealers, and that he could not get rid of her. While Sheila thought she’d handled the situation and she would finally run her business in peace, there was another problem.
During Dabba Cartel’s ending, Sheila received a call from Chavan, and he told her that he’d stolen all her product. As it turned out, Raji was the one behind the theft. She was tired of waking up every day to new trouble. She wanted to end her involvement in the business, but seeing that she was the only one who felt uncomfortable doing what they did, she thought involving Chavan was her only way out. Sheila contacted Mala after receiving Chavan’s phone call to check their storage unit, and as it turned out, he was not lying. Their stock was gone, and Chavan refused to do business with them anymore. He did not need Sheila, especially after Raji had explained to him the recipe behind “mithai.” Raji thought she’d won the match, and she could finally sleep in peace, but she could not have been more wrong. Things had gotten out of control, and Chavan was barely a problem anymore. During Raji’s baby shower, one of Chacko’s men showed up and instructed the ladies to come along with him.
Why Did Chacko Want To Kill Moushumi?
Raji, Sheila, Mala, Shahida, and Varuna were surprised to see Chacko’s vast farm. Chacko welcomed them to his villa; he was pleased to meet his competition, but of course, he was not the gentleman he was portraying himself to be. Chacko owned a spice company that had been passed on for generations, but he wanted to create something of his own; that’s how he got involved in the drug business, and it took him twenty years to build a strong network. The fact that Sheila and her gang had taken over his Mumbai market did not sit well with him. He wanted to own the gang, and he expected them to meet the market’s demand. Varuna wondered what would happen if they did not agree to work for him; well, Chacko had an answer for that. Chacko did not invite the gang to discuss business with them as equals; instead, he wanted to humiliate them and force them to comply. He had invited Moushumi as well, and he wanted Raji to shoot her if she wanted to survive. He believed Moushumi had betrayed his trust and that she deserved to die, but before she was killed, he decided to expose her truth.
In Dabba Cartel’s ending, Chacko revealed that Moushumi was Hari’s mother, and she had handed her son to Sheila to keep him away from the underworld. Chacko had sent a man to Raji’s home to find secrets he could use against Sheila and her gang, and that was how he discovered the unexpected twist to the tale. Raji ultimately pulled the trigger, and the girls immediately realized that their new boss was worse than Chavan. He would not hesitate to kill them if they failed to obey him, and Raji’s dream of escaping to a foreign country and starting her life afresh seemed distant. Moreover, Hari too had discovered Sheila’s secret, and he would surely want to know what happened to Moushumi, his real mother. Keeping the secret from Hari might become impossible, and who knows, maybe he too would join his wife’s business because he desperately wanted a better life.
Will Preeti Investigate The Dabba Gang?
The ending of Dabba Cartel season 1 suggested that the local police officer, Preeti, had found a link between her lover, Shahida, and Bhowmick. Bhowmick had died by suicide after he figured out that the narcotics department was looking into “mithai.” Just when he thought his life would improve after the media exposed all the evidence he had against VivaLife Pharma and he was declared a whistleblower, he learned from Ajit Pathak from the FDSCO (who had been investigating VivaLife Pharma and had nudged Bhowmick to operate with him and become a whistleblower) that the new drug he’d formulated was under scrutiny. When Preeti went through Bhowmick’s phone, she discovered Varuna and Shahida on his recently contacted list and realized that Shahida was somehow involved in the mess. Also, how will Varuna deal with the crisis considering she is the reason behind her husband’s downfall? The narcotics department knows about “mithai,” and they might eventually find out the key players. Will the gang cooperate with the law, or will they get deep into the dirty business? Hopefully, season two of Dabba Cartel will answer all our questions.
