Indrani Mukerjea story: Buried Truth, series hit popular OTT platform Netflix recently. After watching the four-part series, you can’t help but question, why did she do it?
She comes across as a vindictive, angry woman, with negligible EQ. The series reflects Indrani’s anger at being deserted by her family and parlays her refusal to emote any sadness over the plight of her family over the turn of events in the last six and a half years.
So, my question is why do such a series? Was she counseled effectively by her legal team? Did she consider that it may backfire?
But all of that later, let’s talk about the series itself.
The series is based on one of the most sensational murder cases of our time the ‘Sheena Bora murder case’. The case has four main suspects Indrani Mukerjea, her ex-husband Peter Mukerjea, another ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna and her former driver Shyamvar Rai.
For the uninitiated, all four have been accused of murdering or being complicit to murdering Sheena Bora, daughter of Indrani Mukerjea. Apart from Indrani, all other accused refused to be a part of the series or share their perspective, so the series is a little lopsided and incomplete.
The narrative is carried forward by way of interviews from people from Indrani’s past and present.
Many bytes from earlier reportages also add to the narrative. Central to the narrative are Indrani, her daughter with Sanjeev Khanna Vidhie, Indrani’s lawyer Ranjeet Sangle and her son Mikhail.
The narrative of the series is further supported by friends of Sanjeev Khanna, former Police official who provides expert advice, renown journalist Rajdeep Sardesai, senior journalists and courtroom reporters along with Rajesh Sundaram, a former employee and editor of INX Media.
The relevance of the series, lies in the fact that it serves as a wonderful catalogue of events that happened and the build-up to it. While the series brings out nothing new, but the jog of memory puts Indrani in a bad light.
It appears that her understanding of emotion and material is skewed. This also comes across in the narrative of her daughter Vidhie. Why you ask? Let me explain!
From the onset it appears that there are different rules for her children. If Mikhail abuses drugs as suggested by Indrani, she feels it best to send him to an asylum, but if Vidhie openly talks about polishing off bottles of alcohol on two separate occasions, Indrani seems to have no qualms about it.
How many mothers do we know who do not blame themselves if their kids start abusing drugs, but her dismissive, nonchalant reaction on camera is quite the eye-opener.
There are many such instances that showcase her anger towards her parents, her kids-Mikhail and Sheena, Peter Mukerjea, his son Rahul and his family as well!
While allegations against Peter and Rahul fly through her lawyer and her, we get no real clarity on Peter’s involvement in the case.
It is this ambiguity and the fact that they themselves were not there to defend themselves that actually gets viewers rooting for them instead of Indrani. In fact in one of her interviews, she calls Rahul, the only person who was actually searching for Sheena a ‘layabout’.
Vidhie also appears rather shady and a little money minded, though that could be due to the editing of the series as well.
Vidhie seems to swing towards the person with the most money. She was close to Peter till he was the man of the house, but appears to be with Indrani soon after the house that she was supposed to inherit on her 18th Birthday, does not go to her.
She is further seen cheering on her mother’s corner relentlessly, after Indrani gets most of the couple’s assets after the divorce.
The interview of Indrani’s lawyer will tickle your funny bone. The man who has never lost a murder case, as he states, often forgets facts of her case while trying to educate us on it.
But it is perhaps one of Indrani’s last comments that leaves a very sour taste in our mouth.
On being asked, why she didn’t search for Sheena, she says that the girl vanished on her, without telling her where she went! So why should I take the trouble of finding her. The girls in question was Sheena, her daughter who is probably dead! Sad to hear a mother say that!! And that is why I ask- Why did she do the interview!!! She would have been better without it!!!!
