Deva Katta’s “Mayasabha” (TV Series 2025) is an epic spin on the Telugu political minefield. Leaders clash, orchestrations are set off, and there are all sorts of reckonings. Caste looms large, and honesty has to be wielded doubly to stave off greed and subterfuge. Or at what point does the thirst for power upend all noble intentions and suck into an ugly vortex the brave and the righteous? You encounter moral conundrums along the journey, the toughening of the heart—a sobering up to vicious, innocence-shredding power games that spare none once they erupt.
Beginning in mid-1995 and gradually wending back to the 70s over a three-decade span, the show delineates trajectories undertaken by Rami Reddy (Chaitanya Rao) from Kadapa and Kakarla Krishnam Naidu (Aadhi Pinisetty) from Chittoor. They weather the brunt of rigid iniquities, caste violence, and Naxal insurgencies, all of which make decisive shifts in their visions and ideals. Reform is on both of their minds. The duo wishes to galvanise social change, generate transformation in communities that have long borne immense oppression.
But is the road to change so direct and non-loopy? The show culls a lot from Andhra’s real political history to accentuate its key stakeholders and, efforts they bring forth. Tension crops up from the clash between the duo’s sincere efforts and the wider political landscape. Earlier, they deflected from caste. Over the course of the show, we see them weaponize caste as an instrument with which to wage their battles. Both have difficult relationships with their roots, one the son of a farmer, the other of a gangster. The way the duo climbs the ladder of hierarchy, wiping out rivals as the rungs proceed, provides texture and heat to the proceedings, though it could have been more audacious in structure.
It’s perfectly right for a show to adopt a maximalist pitch. “Mayasabha” strains to really dial up the drama. Most of the actors are caught in performing this overriding brief. But it quickly grows to grate. The loud tone doesn’t yield much surprise or variation, flattening an otherwise promising cast into bland theatrics, propelled by Shakthi Kanth Karthick’s equally determined, energetic music. We can’t help but yearn for softer strains, flashes of vulnerability and tragic depth, but the show tends to bypass them, favouring amped-up drama and oversized gestures. Katta throws in several flashbacks, but most feel perfunctory, mere fillers.
It goes without saying that “Mayasabha” would ring sharper with Telugu viewers. Its local intricacies and easter eggs might just rush past others, since the specificities aren’t very laboured over. So, what aspects of detailing are actually appreciable would play differently, contingent on geographical demographics, knowledge of the mesh of figures and their complex machinations. The trouble is that juxtapositions don’t land very smoothly. Neither does the period recreation achieve something coherent, persuasive, or richly dynamic. The drama feels more florid than shaded in myriad beats. A monotony sets in despite the makers’ best intentions of carving in new stakeholders at every turn of the narrative. A lack of organically sustained momentum distracts from the rapidly accruing slew of subplots. After a point, there’s too much in the cauldron and little stoking it.
A rich ensemble gathers friction and energy when all its players strike a buzz, both collectively and individually. “Mayasabha” grows too complacent to sketch many characters in broad strokes, denuding them of much-needed bite and traction. Terrific actors like Divya Dutta, who dons an Indira Gandhi-like personage, are reduced by a hectoring tone, limiting her to a stock-thin portrait of powerful, pioneering womanhood in male-dominated spaces.
Her Iravati snarls a lot and shows she’s not here to mewl along amiably; rather, she will take on and shape her own path. She’s more than ready to put up a fierce challenge to the men and comes off as almost tyrannical. For any actor worth her salt, a role like this would be fun to dig into, and Dutta clearly relishes the opportunity. But it gradually appears as a too overtrodden role, where the material slips dangerously into caricature. The menace comes off as stagey and derivative.
Tertiary layers, designed to rise in the second season, struggle to hone in on something enduring and provocative. Ultimately, there’s a lot of dress-up and hysteria, and little that cuts deep. The pacing flickers and struggles to fully prop up the nine episodes. But there’s ambition here in spades, the kind that insists on leaping and aiming for long distances despite severe limitations. Katta goes above individuals and plumbs something systemic, always hinting at the larger scale underpinning the two friends and their interplay. We are meant to see how they navigate spaces set up to make them feel defeated. With grit and gradual understanding, the two find a foothold. “Mayasabha” heaves for impact but ultimately exhausts instead of wielding a vicelike grip.
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