Aashram

Aashram or Ek Badnaam Aashram is an Indian Hindi-language crime drama web series directed by Prakash Jha for MX Player original. It is produced by Prakash Jha under Prakash Jha Productions. The series stars Bobby Deol along with Aaditi Pohankar, Darshan Kumar, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Tushar Pandey, Anupriya Goenka, Adhyayan Suman, Vikram Kochhar, Esha Gupta, Tridha Choudhury, Rajeev Siddhartha, Sachin Shroff, Anurita Jha, Parinitaa Seth, Jahangir Khan, Kanupriya Gupta, Preeti Sood, Navdeep Tomar and Ayaan Aditya, in key roles. It is written by Madhvi Bhatt, Avinash Kumar, Sanjay Masoomm, Tejpal Singh Rawat and Kuldeep Ruhil. Its first season was made available for streaming on the OTT platform MX Player for free from 28 August 2020.
The second season of the series was released on MX Player on 11 November 2020, with the third season following in June 2022, respectively. The series has been renewed for a fourth season in 2023.

Summary

The story revolves around a godman, Baba Nirala, whose followers have blind faith in him and will do anything that he asks of them. In reality, he is a conman who ensures that his devotees devote their wealth to him and stay attached to his ashram for life. Politicians Hukum Singh and incumbent CM Sundar Lal vie for Baba Nirala's support in the upcoming State Legislative Assembly Elections owing to his large number of followers for their vote bank politics, which only increases after a pop singer, Tinka Singh decides to conduct tours with Baba Nirala to promote his new song.
Meanwhile, SI Ujagar Singh is a police officer who has little interest in his job and simply follows his seniors' orders, until he meets Dr. Natasha in a case related to a skeleton found on the property of an industrial group which has good ties with Sundar Lal. Her constant pestering, along with the stubbornness of a small-time journalist Akhivendra Rathi alias Akki encourages him to take up this case, along with his assistant senior constable Sadhu Sharma.

Cast

Bobby Deol as Kashipur Waale Baba Nirala / Monty Singh
Chandan Roy Sanyal as Bhupendra “Bhopa Swami” Singh
Aaditi Pohankar as Parminder “Pammi” Lochan
Tushar Pandey as Satwinder “Satti” Lochan
Darshan Kumar as Sub-Inspector Ujagar Singh
Anupriya Goenka as Dr. Natasha Katariya
Tridha Choudhury as Babita Lochan
Vikram Kochhar as Senior Constable Sadhu Sharma
Rupesh Kumar Charan Pahari as Nonny, pammi Cousin
Anil Rastogi as Ex - CM Sundar Lal
Sachin Shroff as Chief Minister Hukum Singh
Anurita Jha as Kavita
Kanupriya Gupta as Mohini and Sohini, twin sisters
Rajeev Siddhartha as Akhivendra “Akki” Rathi
Jahangir Khan as Michael Rathi, Monty's henchman
Adhyayan Suman as Tinka Singh, a famous pop singer
Keshav Pandit as Kavita's father
Mala Sinha as Kavita's mother
Navdeep Tomar as Sunny, Monty's henchman
Subrato Roy as Goyal, Ashram Head administrator
Preeti Singh as Sangeeta
Ayaan Aditya as Ravindra Rawat alias RR
Esha Gupta as Sonia, Hukum Singh's Beau and international brand building expert
Hemant Choudhary as I.G. Sumit Chauhan
Akash Singh Rajput as Rocky

Marketing and release

Promotion

The official trailer of the two seasons of this web series was launched on August 16, 2020 and October 29, 2020 respectively by MX Player on YouTube.

Release

Season 1 and Season 2 was made available for streaming from August 28, 2020 and November 11, 2020 respectively on OTT Platform MX Player.
The series made its TV debut through The Q on October 11, 2021.

Critical reception

Writing for NDTV, Saibal Chatterjee rated the series 3 out of 5 adding that “Prakash Jha's digital debut is ambitious, provocative and action-packed.” He praised the performances of actors and concept handling from the director Prakash Jha. Rohan Nahaar of Hindustan Times wrote that Aashram is “a show that doesn't have the courage of its convictions. The self-censorship of sex scenes is emblematic of the trepidation with which Jha approaches the story. As it turns out, that ridiculous disclaimer was utterly unnecessary.”

Controversies

In December 2020, Jodhpur Court had served a legal notice to Bobby Deol and director Prakash Jha after Karni Sena filed a case on the actor and the director for hurting their sentiments and stated that the show "is an attempt to discredit Hinduism and Ashrams". In October 2021, the Bajrang Dal group targeted Aashram web series sets and Prakash Jha for defaming Hindus and the entire aashram system, through his web series, whereas the sets were vandalised by the group. Director Prakash Jha stated that "They will voice their concerns, but I think about the thousands who see my project in the correct manner. It is no joke that 1.5 billion people watched it. If we say there will be no objection, it is not right. " Later, Bobby Deol supported Jha and stated that the show is not about defaming anyone and as an actor nothing else matters.