Koi Naam Na Do (Hindi Series) [Don\’t Give It A Name]

This Indian series is marketed as the story of a gay man falling for his straight best friend, but honestly, underneath that, it’s really about friendship—and what happens when friendship becomes complicated, messy, and emotionally charged. You can watch it on Last Leaf Pictures’ YouTube channel; it has seven episodes, each around 30 minutes long. I had mixed feelings the whole way through, and a lot of that came from how I felt about one of the leads, but I’ll get to that shortly.
At the heart of it are Anshul and Kavith. They meet for the first time on a train bound for Delhi, with neither of them particularly ready to return to their hometowns. They get off halfway through the trip, change their minds, and head back to Mumbai for one more chance at the lives they want there. Anshul is an aspiring actor whose young son lives in Delhi with his grandmother. Kavith is gay and newly out of yet another relationship—his 17th, by his own count over the years. They form an unusual friendship, and because they are both financially struggling, they become roommates. Eventually, they grow truly close, supporting one another emotionally and financially in a way that begins to resemble family. Anshul is warm, fair, and open with everyone around him. Kavith completely adores him: he pampers him, fusses over his son, and gazes at Anshul with a starry-eyed devotion that Anshul clearly enjoys receiving. But Kavith is intensely needy where love is concerned. For him, it is never about anything physical; it is all about the heart. So it is not really surprising when he falls deeply for Anshul and tells him. Anshul initially has no idea how to deal with it, and things become awkward, but Kavith makes clear that he is not asking for anything physical, and somehow the friendship survives. Other people come and go: Kavith’s homophobic brother, and a girl Anshul dates briefly, sending Kavith into a jealous spiral. In Kavith’s mind, the boundary between friendship and a relationship starts to blur until he is actually calling Anshul his boyfriend. Anshul tries to correct him, but gives up far too quickly. When Anshul becomes serious enough about the girl to propose marriage, Kavith is crushed. The love he wanted was never going to happen, and somewhere deep down, he had been holding onto hope that was never truly there.
The production is solid, the performances are good, and none of it looks cheap or amateurish. My issue is entirely with the story. This friendship rests on a foundation of illusions and misunderstandings, and somebody is obviously pulling strings. Kavith just does not feel real to me as a character. He has been in love 17 times, and the previous guy was someone he was prepared to leave the city for after knowing him for all of three weeks. His red flags are everywhere. He is needy, clingy, almost completely self-focused, and does not seem to pause and consider what the other person might be feeling or dealing with. I also think he is quite good at emotional manipulation, even though I do not believe the writers intended him to read that way. But that is honestly how it came across to me. On top of that, suddenly and completely falling into one-sided love with a straight man who is committed is just a lot. He has this desperate need for that love to be returned, without ever really confronting the possibility that maybe the other person simply does not want that with him. Anshul is not an angel either. He plainly enjoys having someone adore him and finally getting to feel that closeness. Still, hiding the girlfriend from Kavith for as long as he did, and never firmly enough putting his foot down about where the boundary lies, is difficult to excuse. He must have known—or at least felt—that Kavith was getting deeper and deeper emotionally. It was right in front of him. And logically, when a gay man is in unrequited love with a straight man and they live together this closely, it never ends well. No matter how much any of us may want to believe otherwise.
To me, this show is really a bromance—a relationship without a proper name. Can two people be soulmates through friendship? Yes, absolutely, but that is something entirely different from what is happening here. They do accept one another, and that part is lovely, but Kavith is nothing but red flags from beginning to end. He keeps insisting that he expects nothing from Anshul, but that is simply untrue; he is constantly craving attention. Giving up on physical love does not mean he is entitled to Anshul’s heart either. And the truth is, there is only pain ahead—deep pain—not only for Kavith, but for Anshul too, if they remain in each other’s lives the way this story has arranged things. We all know it, even if no one in the show wants to say it. There has been talk of a second season, but I genuinely have no idea where it could go from here. Anshul cannot, and really should not, suddenly realize he is gay; that would be absurd. And Kavith continuing to live with him would only be cruel to himself. Should they both find somebody else? Maybe that is the only way out. For now, it was worth watching, but it left behind too many things that are difficult to overlook. (5.5/10)