Kankhajura, the Sony Liv original, is an entertaining watch, but with that said, the series had the potential to leave a much greater impact than it actually did. After watching the series, I felt like I wanted to know more about the past of the two protagonists, Ashu and Max, and understand how their childhood was. Yes, Ashu’s life had been heavily impacted by that one tragic incident in the past, but even before that, he displayed certain traits that made it clear that he was not really doing well emotionally and psychologically. It wasn’t difficult to decipher that Ashu was suffering from really grave mental health issues. But after a point in time, it felt like even Max had certain characteristics that could be associated with psychological distress or hidden trauma. So let’s find out what happened between the two brothers and why they were after each other’s lives.
Spoiler Alert
Why did Ashu go to prison?
To understand why Ashu was so obsessed with getting his brother Max’s validation in life, why he wanted Max to treat him like family, why he was so protective towards him, and, most of all, why he spent 14 years of his life behind bars, it is important to know what happened in the past. Max, Shardul, and Pedro were the best of friends, and together they bullied and made fun of Ashu. Pedro and Shardul would have never dared to do anything to Ashu had Max been on his brother’s side. But you can’t expect decency from others when your own blood treats you in such a terrible manner. Poor Ashu just wanted to prove his worth to his brother. Ashu was an ardent devotee of Max, and even after being treated so terribly, always seemed to endorse his actions. He looked up to him, and no matter what Max did, Ashu always felt that he was acting in his best interests. Max, on the other hand, was sick and tired of his brother constantly hovering around him like a parasite. He got irritated by Ashu’s attitude, not understanding why the poor guy was acting the way he was, and what he sought to achieve from it. He didn’t want anything from Max apart from his affection. Often, Shardul, Pedro, and Max used to play all sorts of pranks on Ashu. Together, they made a fool out of him, and Ashu played along just to make his brother happy. But enduring all the torture didn’t get Ashu any brownie points, and in fact it ruined his life completely. There was a tourist with whom Max had an argument. I felt like he triggered Ashu just to drive him to go and do something to her. The series didn’t give us a lot of clarity pertaining to that particular event, where Ashu became violent and stabbed that tourist, but I believe the reality was in stark contrast with what the police were told. Ashu might have stabbed the lady, but he was not acting of his own accord. Max knew the kind of hold he had over Ashu and how he could use him to his own advantage. Ashu followed his brother’s orders, not knowing the consequences it could have. When the police caught all four of them, Max made sure that he took the fall for whatever had happened. Ashu was sentenced to 14 years in prison, but even then his devotion to his brother did not lessen. He became more impervious to reality. Ashu did things in prison that probably he himself didn’t know he was capable of doing. He had always been very good at manipulating people, and in prison, he used that skill to his advantage.
What I didn’t understand, because the series didn’t delve too deep into that aspect, was why Max hated Ashu so much. I understand that Max would have felt irritated by his brother’s actions and behaviour, but to treat him in such a terrible manner and not even care if he lived or died was very extreme. The things that Ashu had done back in the day made one thing very clear: the man was suffering from mental health disorders. He pretended to be this timid and innocent man, but he wasn’t. Whenever he wanted to take revenge on somebody, he instigated them to such a level that they ended up taking their lives. He had his way with words, and he could really get inside a person’s mind.
What did Ashu do to help Max?
Once Ashu got out of the prison, he thought that his brother would make him a part of his family and his business. But nothing of that sort happened. Max treated Ashu as if he were some distant relative. He didn’t want Ashu to stay at his place, and he had no plan of making him a partner in his business. While Ashu was rotting in the prison, fighting every day for his survival, Max was having the time of his life. Max met a girl named Nisha; he got married to her, and they had a daughter together. Max, with the help of his uncle, Santosh Gaonkar, who was a politician, made a lot of money. Max, together with Shardul and Pedro, had started his own real estate and development group. He was given the responsibility of developing an area called Shastri Colony, and he knew that if everything went according to his plan, then he would make a lot of money for him and his partners. The problem was that a local leader, Deshmukh Bai, was opposed to the redevelopment. She had certain demands, and Max was just not ready to meet them. Max wanted signatures of the locals who lived in the area, but Deshmukh Bai made sure that nobody signed the MOUs. Ashu saw everything, and he decided to help his brother out and remove all the obstacles from his way. Firstly, Ashu got to know that a woman named Cathy was blackmailing Max, and so he went and made her his first target. Ashu gaslighted her to the extent that the woman took her own life. Max felt relieved in a way, though he didn’t know at that time that it was Ashu who had planned everything. Ashu started living in Shastri Colony, and he tried to get to grips with the power dynamics of the area. He realized that Deshmukh Bai’s right-hand man, Janardan, had some issues with her. He wanted a pay raise, but Deshmukh Bai wasn’t ready to give him that. Moreover, Ashu figured out that Deshmukh Bai’s younger son, Babya, was gay, and that he could use this information to tarnish her image. Ashu took his brother into his confidence and then conspired together with Janardan to get Deshmukh Bai and her elder son, Surya, killed. After that, he double-crossed Janardan and informed the police that he had killed his bosses in order to become the new leader of Shastri Colony. Max was very happy with what Ashu had been able to accomplish, though he wasn’t aware of the entire story at that point in time.
Meanwhile, Ashu also made sure that he won his brothers’ trust by creating a wedge between him and his partners, i.e., Shardul and Pedro. Shardul and Pedro saw what Ashu was up to, but they knew that Max was brainwashed at that moment and that he wouldn’t believe them. Ashu crossed his boundaries when he asked Janardan and his men to attack him while he was heading back home with Max’s wife, Nisha. Ashu made it look like it was Deshmukh Bai who was behind the attack, as he wanted Max to take action against her. Shardul was trying to sort out things at his end by taking Surya, Deshmukh Bai’s son, into confidence. Ashu didn’t want that to happen as he was backing Janardan, and he wanted Max to side with him. He wanted to make Max feel threatened and also win his trust by showing him that he saved his wife’s life. Ashu, at that moment, didn’t realize that all those tricks would backfire if Max got to know the truth. His intentions might have been pure; maybe he actually wanted Max to bag that redevelopment deal, but to achieve that, he did things that put him in a difficult spot.
How did Ashu take revenge on Max?
Pedro and Shardul were just waiting for the right time and opportunity to expose Ashu. They wanted to show Max that he was a dangerous man who couldn’t be trusted at any cost. Shardul kidnapped Ashu and tortured him for hours. He told him to admit the fact that he had been leaking information about their deal to the police. The truth was that Ashu was in contact with DSP Leena Naik, but up until then he had not leaked even a single piece of information. He was, in a real sense, trying to help Max, though his way of doing things did seem questionable. Leena Naik often used Ashu’s help to extract confessions out of criminals. Ashu was a brilliant manipulator, as stated earlier, and Leena didn’t feel that she did anything wrong by taking the help of an ex-convict. It was Leena who helped Ashu when he was in prison, and the latter also accepted that had she not been there for him, he would not have survived long. That said, Leena also knew what he was capable of.
So after Shardul and Pedro abducted Ashu, they called Max and asked him to come to the specified location. Ashu was smart enough to send his location to Leena Naik, as he knew that his life was in danger. Max arrived at the scene, and he asked both Shardul and Pedro to leave. Max figured out that, from orchestrating a fake attack on Nisha, to creating a wedge between him and his partners, Ashu was the mastermind behind everything. I believe had Ashu not escaped from there with Leena Naik’s help, Max would have definitely killed him. Once Ashu realized what Max’s intentions were, he decided to ruin his brother’s life and take revenge for all the torture and bullying he had endured. Because Ashu knew so much about the redevelopment deal, he started giving all the information to Leena Naik. He told her about the fake soil report that Max had obtained by bribing an expert named Chenoy (even though Max had originally acted upon Ashu’s advice) and about how he laundered money through Nisha’s company, and he even pinned the blame for Cathy’s death on him. Ashu was a shrewd conspirator, and he decided to lay a trap for his brother and his bully friends. Ashu told Leena that Cathy and Max had done a lot of illegal transactions together. Ashu advised Leena that if she or any other police officer went and questioned Pedro, who was the legal advisor to Max Developers, then he would probably break down and reveal some information. Ashu told Leena that, to put pressure on Pedro, they should take him to the same house where Cathy used to live. Meanwhile, he called Max and told him to come and meet him at Cathy’s house. Now, Shardul thought that he had the prey in his grasp. He had no clue that Ashu had set the bait for him. Shardul decided to go to Cathy’s house and end Ashu’s story once and for all. He had no clue that instead of Ashu, a police officer and his own partner were present at the scene. Shardul set a gas cylinder on fire, and the ensuing explosion ended up taking the police officer’s life, and it sent Pedro into a state of coma. Shardul was frustrated beyond any measure, and given an option, he would have killed Ashu with his bare hands. But the man realized that he had walked right into the trap, and he had no option but to accept his defeat. So Shardul went into hiding, and that left Max alone to defend himself.
Why did Nisha expose Max?
Once Ashu decided he would destroy Max’s life, there was no stopping him. Ashu had realized that Nisha was a good person, and that she wasn’t aware about half of the things that had happened in Max’s past. Max had lied to her about being a civil engineer, he had lied to her about whatever had happened between him and Ashu, and she had no clue the kind of illegitimate activities he was involved in. With time, Nisha started to realize that Max was not the man he pretended to be. Once, she saw Shardul making fun of Ashu, and she felt surprised when Max didn’t intervene or he didn’t feel that Shardul did anything wrong. Through Amy, Ashu’s love interest, Nisha got to know that, back in the day, Max had bullied his brother in the worst possible manner. After the central audit board conducted a raid on Nisha’s company, Ashu gave her a call to tell her about what her husband was up to. He revealed to her that Max had only agreed to let her start her own venture because he needed a front to launder his black money. The guy who used to launder Max and his partners’ money, Vinayak, had raped a girl, and so he had come onto the radar of the police. Santosh Gaonkar told Max that he needed to find somebody else to help them launder money, and that’s when Max got the idea of killing two birds with one stone. He made his wife happy by helping her start her own business, and on the other hand, he proved his worth in front of his uncle by taking care of all his black money. I believe that Max would have outplayed his brother, leaving Ashu unable to prove anything, had Nisha not gone against her husband at the very last moment.
In Kankhajura’s ending, Nisha made an offer to Santosh Gaonkar, and told him that she could help him fix all his problems. She arranged for a meeting between Gaonkar and Leena’s boss, the police commissioner, and they all cumulatively decided to make Max a scapegoat. Actually, scapegoat wouldn’t be the right word to use here, as Max was ultimately responsible for what had happened anyways. The blame for the death of a police officer, for illegally taking over properties, and for identity theft was put on Max. Ashu, on the other hand, was given a clean chit, while Max was put behind bars. Max was visibly hurt when he saw that his own wife had turned against him. In her testimony, Nisha spoke of how the entire redevelopment project had made her husband paranoid, and he had started suspecting everybody around him. Nisha wanted to look out for her and her daughter. After whatever she had gotten to know about Max, she had lost faith in him. That said, the charges against Max still hadn’t been proved. That means that he still has an opportunity to turn the odds in his favor. Max had absolutely no attachment to his brother. We saw how he told him that he didn’t feel even an ounce of remorse after he had asked him to take the blame for that tourist death 14 years back. Max wanted to win; the redevelopment project was his life’s dream, and he could go to any extent to make sure that he completed it successfully. As for Ashu, there is a high possibility that he will start working for Nisha if he is able to win her trust. Nisha had a soft corner for Ashu, since she didn’t like how her husband and his friends treated the poor guy. But that didn’t mean that she was unaware of what he was capable of doing. Ashu was a free man, but still he was walking on thin ice. Max will definitely come after him in the near future, and it would be interesting to see what Ashu does to defend himself.
