Pre-lib Delhi is fondly looked at as a nostalgic idea to wank to— especially when you’re forlorn for happier times. There’s no doubting the fact that the 80s in Delhi is when the city truly peaked. Dil Bekaraar on Disney+ Hotstar gets the city, the anticipation for privatization and love blossoming over Maggi (sans Fanta) and Nirula’s ice cream right.

Based on Anuja Chauhan’s Those Pricey Thakur Girls (2013), Dil Bekaraar is perhaps one of the few series that doesn’t entirely make you wince- neither the adaptation nor the standalone story as a whole. Directed by Habib Faisal and screenplay by Kunal Aneja, Suhani Kanwar, Ruchika Roy does rose-tinted memories of Delhi justice, and pays attention to bringing details alive from the book, just as much as Chauhan wrote.

The Thakur’s (Hindu Undivided Family, as you’ll learn) at Hailey Road are a fun bunch to make acquaintance with. The patriarch retired Justice L.N. Thakur (Raj Babbar) and his wife Mamta (Poonam Dhillon) frequently fuss over their alphabetically named daughters—Anjani, Binodini, Chandrakanta, Debjani and Eshwari— and enjoy ice creams (drink every time you see someone in the series eat and reference to those). Anji (Sukhmani Sadana), the eldest, is married to a workaholic husband who finds no patience in his heart to indulge in attention problems. Binni (Anjali Anand) and her husband find themselves dreaming of more business ideas than the enthusiastic lads of B-School graduates combined and attempt to conspire to get her parents to subsequently fund those ideas. Chandu absconded with her American boyfriend on her wedding night and continues to remain a disappointment to her irate mother years after the said episode, and doesn't make an appearance herself.

Dabbu (Sahher Bambba) looks stunning as a newsreader with Deshdarpan (if you know you know) and is easily rattled by gossip columnists taking her down. The youngest, Esh (Medha Shankar), doesn’t want to be someone’s “chick” and yet wants her friend’s attention at Modern School, Barakhamba Road. Anjali from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) walked so queen Esh could run (with the basketball). The two unmarried sisters at the Thakur's occupy larger storylines, in comparison to the other three. The parents may not have a favourite but the directorial team certainly does.

Within this set-up, Justice Thakur’s letch brother A.N. Thakur (Pankaj Kalra) who hits on their part-timer Dulari features with his irritable wife Bhudevi (Padmini Kolhapure) and their son, Gulgul (Aditya Kapadia) who is written with sensitivity, instead of amplifying the joke he is considered to be. Justice Thakur and his friends bond over card games, where ice thaws between Dabbu and Dylan Singh Shekhawat (Akshay Oberoi). They make eyes at each other, brush hands, and go over Dylan’s kink for neck kisses.

We’ll then cut man slack cause he emerges to be the knight in shining armour, who takes down crony politician Hardik Motla (Chandrachur Singh), scum responsible for using (trigger) phrases including “anti-national” (there was one “aap chronology samjhiye”, another UAPA equivalent charge from a collection of political parallels to pick from among others).

Basically, it’s hard not to fall for Dylan Singh Shekhawat, who is kind enough to inform women before hook-up that shit isn’t serious unlike the senior editor from one of the dailies who I hold a vendetta against for something similar. If only, we had strong folks with beautiful eyes who could write scathing profiles on numbnuts in Indian bureaucracy and be talked over for weeks for their bylines and not tweets; I’d kill to date one of those myself.

Oberoi brings the dreamy literary figure to life with his charm on screen. It’s hard to distinguish especially when he’s fighting the system and taking people down. In these troubling times, you'd want a personal Dylan in your life, that's how dependable our boy is. His chemistry with Bambba and their romance on-screen is pretty convincing, even for those who have lost all hope for themselves. The first half of the series will make you want to see more of them than anything else, the second half will make you crave homemade Maggi, pizza from Nirula’s, and taking down the government. All great ideas, always.

Other than production errors like a flat-screen television and a Mac lipstick with present-day packaging in the 80s in India, most of the series is reasonable. I was truly curious to see if Anji’s frequently foreign travelling husband procured her a Mac lipstick in the late 80s from one of his US trips to confirm the packaging of the lipstick only to look up and learn that the brand itself came to the forefront in the niche makeup circuit in Canada first, in circa ’85. Hard to think he’d manage to procure that Ruby Woo tube then, in the US as early as the late 80s. Even if he did, the flat TV that also features as a line drawing in the opening credit is a bit of an odd choice to mark expensive foreign goods when those didn’t exist, even for frequent travelers to bring back home.

Some portions in the series are fabulous when it comes to the production design, while the others just fall flat. I don't know how the in and out happens but throughout the series, you'll notice the inconsistencies, even when you're hopelessly falling for Dylan yourself. Even without the production design errors, there is a sense of continuity problem, for example, the Thakurs are seen eating mangoes in one scene and the series proceeds to Delhi winters for the other characters in no time. In my second viewing of the pilot, I observed that half the Thakurs are in Summer and the other half are chilling in Winter clothes when Debjani receives a telegram.

Regardless, it is heartening to see a series trying to steer clear from the Delhi stereotypes that the city is known for today, as opposed to what it was known for 35 years ago. I believe, the production errors are excusable in these times. That, and compressing the arcs for most characters in a ten-episode series while not diluting any character is my jam. It could have all gone wrong if the writing appeared extra or inauthentic but the team managed to get that going, making sure, the overall feel-good value is intact in the series.

Most of the recent Holiday special originals fail to capture warmth and romance in the time of crises in Delhi, and Die Hard on Christmas is overkill. If, you like me, think Christmas is the pinnacle of holidays and need a safe, yet warm idea to go with, binge Dil Bekaraar with a side of homemade Maggi and Nirula’s takeaway. You won’t regret falling deep in Dylan Singh Shekhawat’s eyes and if you need a pertinent reminder of the pressing problems in your life, Debjani Thakur’s aggressiveness will help you fight through those.

The series is available for streaming on Disney+ Hotstar in India.

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