Maamla Legal Hai: A laughter riot of a comfort courtroom sitcom!

Maamla Legal Hai review: It's a comfortable watch sitcom that makes you laugh out loud while painting an actual reality of judiciary, lawyers, and the difference between law and justice! 

Just almost a month back, I was writing an article about Sitcoms and why they have become our constant. And one of the things I felt while writing was that I couldn't find many Indian sitcoms to reference, and lo and behold, just after some time, Maamla Legal Hai came out! This show, just like Panchayat, hits the right bones to tickle while commenting on subjects we often tend to discard as hilarious news pieces. 

Opening with a voiceover by Vijay Raaz, who welcomes us all inside the District Court Patparganj, Delhi, with a heavy heart, tells us that here, lawyers' coats may be black, but not their hearts. The show explores the various sides of the justice system through weird cases, lawyers, and their politics. Here, some lawyers have AC chambers that charge clients high fees while others sit in the foyer, parking lots, or under a tree, finding clients or are busy selling their services like in a fish market. 

When lawyers are people who all get over a luxury car like paparazzi on celebs to get a single affidavit done, then one can only imagine the cases that they may fight. Five people looting a single person is dacoity, a parrot harassing a woman, monkeys harassing and stealing from lawyers, a husband mad at his wife for not being shy on their suhaagrat, a child bride wanting to stay with her husband whose father is forcing him to remarry, or a woman in jail wanting not just to marry but celebrate her first night too. 

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These cases or lawyers may sound weird, even hilarious, and we all have seen, heard, or read about them or such cases in newspapers for our giggles, but they tend to be more than what they might look or sound like. The producer Sameer Saxena, writers Saurabh Khanna, Kunal Aneja, and director Rahul Pandey don't just want to make a preachy statement through these witty, weird court cases or lawyers. They want to show us that, standing on our high pedestal of privilege, we can't teach people about law and justice.

And they do this through Ananya (Naila Grewal), a Harvard Law graduate who has come to work on a grassroots level in India to get experience and help people as a legal aid (reminds of sachiv ji in Panchayat). But her mirage of riding high on the morality horse of right vs wrong, just like ours, is soon broken. This is not the US; here, legal aid doesn't help the cupboard full of cases, not even the premium poor clients, but runs a parlor as a side business or a public prosecutor doesn't become president but is considered a joke. 

In such an unfair judiciary system, there is a vast difference between law and justice, and every man is for themselves, like VD Tyagi (Ravi Kishan), president of the Patparganj courthouse. Aspiring to be the bar association president, he is a streetsmart or jugaadu lawyer who finds unique twisting methods to help his own cause. But every once in a while, he finds his heart and acts not so selfishly. And just as jugaadu and emotional as him is Sujata 'didi' (Nishi Bisht), a lower-rung woman lawyer who is simply busy trying to get her own chamber. 

There are many more characters like Vishwas (Anant Joshi), a self-proclaimed Donna who manages everything and knows that he can have a crush on Ananya but does not dream of being with her as she is too out of his league; Munshi ji, a  learned lawyers who is always there to advise the lost souls, Mintu, a loyal associate of Tyagi or PP ji, a lawyer who wants to fight for good but has been too long in the system to believe in its goodness! 

I wish I could have seen more of Ananya and the camaraderie shared between her and Sujata, or some more cases and less of this presidential politics. But one thing is clear: this is neither a usual courtroom drama nor this is 'Suits'!  Rather, it's the aptest sitcom with some of the best talents showcasing our legal system where getting justice sometimes simply means creating evidence to charge a criminal, getting a woman in jail a chance to be a mother, letting a child marriage stay intact, fight for animal rights as well as with animals and most importantly find that will to fight for good while fighting for oneself within the unjust system. I am all seated for more seasons of this show! 

Maamla Legal Hai is currently streaming on Netflix! 

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