First things first, you want to eat up the screen when Coldd Lassi aur Chicken Masala plays. Other than the fact that Divyanka Tripathi and Rajeev Khandelwal have an unmistakable chemistry together as a couple (more about that later), the fact that there is so much of food on screen, ranging from Indian to global, it is tough to resist temptation of having a bite of it all. You want to enter the kitchen and steal it all, both for the flavour and the kind of presentation that it comes with.
This is exactly the core of the narrative too that has been put together by director Pradeep Sarkar. While he makes sure that the web series has an impressive look and feel to it by means of presentation, he also garnishes it all with enough content that brings on the right flavours at all.
As a result, what you get to relish and cherish in the first season of this innovative series is a mix of all emotions, be it love, drama, a bit of humour and dollops of emotions. This one doesn’t restrict itself to being just a romantic tale, it in fact packs a lot more in there to make it a more humane story and how love never dies even if there are moments in life that make you drift apart.
Though a plot line like this could well have turned out to be a soppy tale, Pradeep Sarkar ensures that there is something interesting that happens in every episode. So when college lovers and couple Divyanka and Rajeev meet again after 9 years, there are sparks that fly all over again, though of a different kind. The journey from Bhopal to Mumbai changes them both. From being a sweet girl who has aspirations to do something worthwhile in her career as a chef, Divyanka turns out to be a rather dry single mother with bitterness for her ex. On the other hand Rajeev, a rather casual but extremely talented man reaches peak of his career by turning into an internationally recognised chef, and is still relatively soft in his approach towards Divyanka.
To dilute tension between the duo, there is another couple which keeps bringing on occasional smiles and laughter. As best friends of Rajeev and Divyanka respectively, there are Mrunal Dutt and Barkha Sengupta who bring relief into the proceedings. Both are good in their respective parts and so are Priyanshu Chatterjee and Saloni Khanna, their close friends, who have smaller but interesting parts to play in the storytelling.
What is most interesting though is the manner in which Divyanka and Rajeev are totally comfortable with each other, especially when their characters are required to be truly into each other back in time. It is good to see the camaraderie and chemistry between the duo which lends an indication of a real life couple either love or squabbling with each other.
That said, the pace of the series is like that of a TV serial. The world of web series has a certain pace and texture that is characteristic to it. However in case of Coldd Lassi aur Chicken Masala, the look, feel and the narrative appears to be that of a soap, though thankfully there isn’t much dragging there as it all concludes in 12 episodes. Had this been a bit faster paced, it would all have fitted in even better.
That said, what you still remember most is the sheer genre that is brought to fore by this Ekta Kapoor production. Through her web series she is trying to bring in different flavours each time around and the fact that it is the cocktail of food and romance that has been explored here, at the end of it all you feel rather satiated.