‘Hey Kay Navin?’ review: Varun Narvekar redefines feel-good in this breezy rom-com

An elusive, untranslatable quality pervades over the title of Varun Narvekar’s rom-com series, Hey Kay Navin?,which is a phrase in Marathi used rather casually to express surprise over a new occurring in someone’s life. Its literal translation to English loses meaning altogether as it becomes ‘What’s this new?’, while a closer rendition, ‘What’s this now’ risks losing out on the inflective possibilities of the phrase, which can mean different things in different contexts. It also carries an unassuming, everyday feeling; there’s no panache, there’s no bite. It slips in through a conversation like a bridge, sometimes jolly, sometimes not; sometimes ironic, sometimes shocked. It is a filler, but emotive still. And can emotions be translated to language? Can love be quantified in words?

That’s partly also the struggle of Rama (Priya Bapat), the protagonist in Hey Kay Navin?, who lives a life of her own in her head, unable to really break down her innermost feelings. This leads her to take a sabbatical from her corporate job and start her own clothing brand. Her ever-goofy husband, Aditya (Umesh Kamat) supports her as she faces the taunts of her mother, who is unable to understand her decision to start a new business. “I am tired of the monotony; I want something new in life,” Rama reasons. And ‘new’ she gets, both in the form of people and experiences which gets her to contemplate on the ‘old’.

A still from the show
| Photo Credit:
ZEE5

The show progresses initially in a breezy sit-com manner, invoking the slow charm of the early seasons of Dhruv Sehgal and Mithila Palkar’s Little Things, where the stakes don’t seem as high and conflicts get resolved by the end of each episode. Only, the couple here are at a different phase in life where love has already blossomed and started shedding its leaves now. That’s what Rama feels as she compares their relationship with other couples. The bond between the two anchors the show as Varun assuredly writes authentic moments between them, while making sure not to overburden the plot with complexities early on. There is a rhythm to the screenplay, which operates more on the lines of a quirky YouTube sketch video on occasions while choosing to do emotional labour in later episodes.

It is a style that has powered through earlier even in his films, Muramba (2017) and 1234 (2023), both being stirring romantic dramas with an undercurrent of humour beneath the lines. Varun’s approach towards deconstructing relationships is almost mathematical, as he deep-dives into situations and studies their causes and effects through freewheeling conversations that reveal the fractures of a bond. Muramba is practically designed as a dialogue between a boy and his parents, who convince him to get back with the girl he just broke up with. There are such moments even in Hey Kaay Navin? where confrontations turn ugly and Varun treats it with balance, not letting the intensity of these emotions define the overall aesthetics.

Rama is at the center of this exploration. There is always more to her than what meets the eye as we see her also being lost and confused while trying to build her own brand. Varun frames her scepticism with care, refusing to slip into easy answers. Priya also plays Rama with ease, embodying her worries and joys with an even grace. She is warmly complimented by Umesh (also her real-life partner) as their wholesome chemistry becomes a worthy display of a healthy relationship that is as much about the laughs as it is about the fears.

A still from the show
| Photo Credit:
ZEE5

It is through their interactions that Hey Kay Navin? builds on the picture of a marriage and scraps away the facade of an ideal relationship. The show also unfolds slowly, without rushing through moments, letting silences seep in and knowing exactly when to pull over. There is little subversion in the treatment as it runs on a straightforward premise but still makes a difference in fully committing to the genre, coming as a gush of fresh air especially at a time when Hindi OTT is obsessed with guns and violence. The use of ‘new’ in the phrase in its title also seems to signify this sense of reinvigoration, where the story is not a slave to algorithms and characters have a sense of three-dimensionality; where plot points are not dictated by the anxieties of low attention spans and the writing exudes with authenticity as the emotions get translated into images and love is quantified through the narrative.

Hey Kay Navin? is currently streaming on ZEE5