‘Babita Singh Reporting’: Nimisha Sajayan is a Glorious Underdog In This Tenacious Procedural
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Babita Singh (Nimisha Sajayan) or ‘Baby’ as colleagues, friends and family call her, is the last person one might look towards to deliver justice. Daughter of a cop who died in the line of duty, Baby was given her father’s job on compassionate grounds. A deputy to a greasy cop, SI Sethi (Rajesh Kumar), who asks her to shoot a ‘reel’ making an entrance on his motorbike in the film’s first scene, Baby would do well to simply hold on to the job.
And yet, by sheer curiosity, she finds herself days away from being a part of on-field investigations, moved from mundane paperwork at the station. It’s unusual because Baby has been raised to be a generous, stoic Indian woman – (relatively) caged in her domestic life, where her agency comes with a million terms and conditions. She willingly subjects herself to patriarchy, like it’s a badge of honour.
Her husband, Sharad (Anshuman Pushkar) runs an electrical appliances shop, and is not the obvious villain we’ve come to expect. He loves her, is supportive, but the way he pressures her is more subtle. For his sister’s baby shower, he badgers her to apply for leave to a point that she’s manipulated by Sethi into accepting a temporary suspension on his behalf.
This is the feature directorial debut of Ambiecka Pandit, who was earlier at the helm of an episode on Black Warrant (2025). Written by Amita Vyas, the film has Sudip Sharma’s fingerprints all over it, serving as an executive producer. His procedurals spanning two franchises: Paatal Lok and Kohrra, on Amazon Prime and Netflix respectively, have set a high bar to probe society with the help of a murder........
