Dabba Cartel: Is Mala knowingly involved in drug trafficking?

Spoiler note: This article discusses plot developments across all seven episodes of Dabba Cartel Season 1 on Netflix.

By the end of the season, Mala (Nimisha Sajayan) is a knowing participant in the drug operation, not an accidental bystander. The key detail is how she enters it. Rediff’s review of the series states she is pulled into the criminal enterprise through her boyfriend’s blackmail. That framing separates her from a recruit who weighs options and signs on: she knows what she is participating in, and she is left without a realistic exit.

Dabba Cartel was produced by Excel Entertainment, the production house co-founded by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani, and directed by Hitesh Bhatia. The series was created by Shibani Dandekar Akhtar, Vishnu Menon, Gaurav Kapur, and Akanksha Seda. Its seven episodes run between 45 and 56 minutes each.

Who Is Mala?

Mala is the most economically disadvantaged of the five women at the center of the show, a characterization the Koimoi review applies to Nimisha Sajayan’s position within the ensemble. Before forming a dabba business with Raji Jagtap (Shalini Pandey), she worked as a domestic worker in the household of Varuna Dasgupta (Jyothika), the group’s wealthiest member. The Dabba Cartel Wikipedia entry lists her character as “Raji’s business partner; Kunni’s mother; Varuna’s ex-maid.” Those three roles place her at the intersection of nearly every significant relationship in the cartel.

Nimisha Sajayan is a Kerala State Film Award winner (2019) whose earlier work includes The Great Indian Kitchen (2021) and Chithha (2023), building her reputation across Malayalam and Tamil cinema before this Hindi-language Netflix series. The Rediff review calls her character “hot-tempered” with a “spitfire spirit unfazed by any form of mischief.” Our reading of those descriptors is a character who responds to external pressure rather than engineers situations.

Santosh and the Route In

Mala’s boyfriend Santosh (Prateik Pachori) is identified in the show’s Wikipedia entry as “a drug dealer,” and the series uses that relationship as the channel through which the broader criminal network reaches her. The Rediff review’s account of her entry as resulting from blackmail, rather than persuasion or temptation, rules out the reading that she was seduced by easy money. She does not choose the situation; she is cornered into it.

How the Operation Works

The lunchbox delivery service provides cover for a drug distribution network operating out of Thane, a city in Mumbai’s metropolitan area. According to the Koimoi review, the women begin by distributing Shilajit hidden in their dabbas. The Rediff review notes that Raji’s mother-in-law Sheila “Ba” Jagtap (Shabana Azmi), a retired criminal, was connected to a homemade aphrodisiac trade before taking on broader operational management as the enterprise scales. The Cinemaholic’s plot summary notes the cartel eventually develops an original compound called Mithai, a mixture of MDMA and a fentanyl-based painkiller called Modella, modeled in-universe on a South American drug known as Tucibi or Pink Cocaine. Varuna Dasgupta (Jyothika) develops that formula after learning about Tucibi. A practical system keeps the operation running: per the Rediff review, a bindi marks drug-laced boxes apart from ordinary food deliveries.

Shahida (Anjali Anand), identified in the show’s Wikipedia credits as a real estate broker, is the fourth member of the group. Drug lord Chacko Kurian, played by Sunil Grover in a special appearance, represents the criminal network the women are operating within.

The Police Investigation

The show runs an institutional investigation alongside the cartel’s operations. Inspector Ajit Pathak (Gajraj Rao), an FDSCO inspector per the Wikipedia cast listing, and Sub-Inspector Preeti (Sai Tamhankar) together investigate Vivalife Pharmaceutical. That pharma thread connects to Shankar Dasgupta (Jisshu Sengupta), who heads Vivalife and is Varuna’s husband, which routes the investigation directly into the domestic life of one of the cartel’s own members.

Critical Response

Critical response to the series diverged considerably. Koimoi gave 4 out of 5 stars. The NY Times, per Wikipedia’s critical reception section, called the show “loaded with brains, humor and electric performances,” while NDTV found it “uneven but always engrossing” at 3 out of 5. India Today gave it 2 out of 5, finding the finale tedious. Rotten Tomatoes records a 64% Tomatometer score from 11 critics. Jyothika’s performance earned the OTTPlay Award for Best Supporting Actor (Female), per the show’s Wikipedia entry.

Coercion Versus Choice

The show distinguishes Mala’s participation from that of the other women by framing hers as coerced rather than chosen. The Rediff review describes some members of the group as characters who “weakly contemplate between wanting out and staying put,” language that implies visible agency over a decision. Mala’s position, per the review’s blackmail account, is different: she carries knowledge of the operation and no real exit from it.

The more pointed dramatic question running through the remaining episodes is what a person does once she is inside a structure that depends on her continued participation, not whether she opened the door willingly.