‘Dabba Cartel’ trailer: Shabana Azmi leads an all-female drug ring -OxBig News Network

Shalini Pandey, Nimisha Sajayan, Shabana Azmi, and Anjali Anand in ‘Dabba Cartel’.
| Photo Credit: Netflix

The trailer for Dabba Cartel, a new Netflix crime series fronted by veterans Shabana Azmi and Jyotika, is here. Produced by Excel Entertainment, the series follows the lives of five middle-class women whose dabba (food-delivery) business in Thane mushrooms into a clandestine drug trade. As the stakes escalate and an investigation ensues, the women and their husbands are ensnared in a murky pharmaceuticals scam.

Dabba Cartel is directed by Hitesh Bhatia and written by Vishnu Menon and Bhavna Kher. 

Azmi and Jyotika are joined in the cast by Gajraj Rao, Nimisha Sajayan, Shalini Pandey, Anjali Anand, Sai Tamhankar, Jisshu Sengupta, Lillete Dubey and Bhupendra Singh Jadawat. 

The series is co-created by Shibani Akhtar and produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani’s Excel Entertainment. 

“70-80 of our crew were women. The show represents absolute women power,” Jyotika said at the show’s trailer launch in Mumbai. Shabana Azmi joked that she could not turn down the project, coming as it did from her son (Farhan) and daughter-in-law.

“My character (Sheela) in the series is very fascinating,” Azmi reaffirmed. “You have no idea at any given point where she is headed.”

Azmi also confessed that she had advised the makers to cast someone else for Jyotika’s character. However, they stuck to their choice. “It was my mistake. I would have been robbed for a great collaboration if they had listened to me,” Azmi said.

ALSO READ:How Shabana Azmi turned the spotlight on women in Hindi cinema

On working with a younger generation of actors, the veteran said, “Some of them come on set with some trepidation (about working with me) but that quickly dissipates. In fact, I have to nudge and remind them that I am their senior (laughs).”

Speaking about the series, Shibani Akhtar said in a statement, “With Dabba Cartel, we wanted to explore the extraordinary journey of ordinary household women, and how resilience, ambition, and survival instincts can push them into unimaginable circumstances. This is a story of friendship, betrayal, and power, set against the backdrop of a world they never imagined being a part of.”

Dabba Cartel will stream on Netflix from February 28.