Aahana Swrup
The Netflix show ‘Dabba Cartel’ creates an intriguing world of the criminal underbelly of Mumbai’s drug world, which sucks five middle-class women into its spiral. The Hindi-language show follows Raji, the owner of a modest lunchbox delivery business. As the woman and her business partner, Mala, get roped into delivering drugs for the local crime lord, Chavan, the women find themselves banding behind the former’s mother-in-law, Sheila. Under the older woman’s surprisingly practiced leadership, Raji and Mala’s business grows until it takes them to unimaginably dangerous heights.
Alongside this narrative, another storyline unfolds revolving around a Big Pharma scandal that takes off in the wake of a countrywide problem of illegal painkiller distribution. Thus, VivaLife Pharma, a company under suspicion of producing the illicit Modella pills, finds itself in a race against federal agent Ajit Pathak and his police aide, Preeti. This secondary plotline adds riveting large-scale drama and thrill to the story, thus inviting natural intrigue about its potential origins in reality.
Modella and VivaLife Are Both Not Real
Although ‘Dabba Cartel’ is mostly a fictional work, the show retains some connections to reality that inform its sense of realism. The narrative elements like Modella and its originating company, VivaLife Pharma, share similar off-screen parallels. In terms of direct connections, neither the drug nor the pharmaceutical company have any counterparts in reality. In real life, the closest drug to Modella in terms of name remains Modula, a medication utilized for the treatment of erectile dysfunction. Similarly, the audience may be able to find Viva Pharma, an India-based pharmaceutical distribution company. Nonetheless, the real-life drug and company have no connections to the on-screen storytelling elements—retaining a significant distance from their narrative purposes.
Still, despite their lack of firm real-life origins, these elements hold somewhat of a basis in reality. Modella is a fictionalized fentanyl-based painkiller that serves the narrative purpose of highlighting the dangerous side effects of drugs with opioids in their composition. As a result, it remains reminiscent of real-life addictive drugs that have contributed to the fatal opium crisis, such as OxyContin. However, Modella’s menacing role in the illegal drug market in India distinguishes it from most opioid painkillers. In real life, there haven’t been any instances of identical pharmaceutical scandals involving illegally produced fentanyl-based painkillers.
However, certain similar real-life cases can be employed to parallel Modella’s presence in the show. In 2018, authorities in Indore arrested two Indians and a Mexican individual who were in possession of illicitly manufactured fentanyl. The same year, similar arrests were made in Mumbai, where people were found in possession of chemicals intended for fentanyl production. These illegally manufactured drugs were intended to be shipped off to Mexico and the US, respectively.
Likewise, another similar case unfolded in 2022 when the Central Bureau of Narcotics made a drug bust at a manufacturing factory in New Delhi, which was producing illegal batches of Tramadol, a synthetic opioid painkiller. The drug had been declared a Psychotropic Substance by the Indian government in 2018. In this operation, the factory was running under the disguise of a Honey processing plant. Furthermore, Tramadol Tablets were being branded as Ayurvedic medicine. Even though these instances don’t share the magnitude of Modella’s on-screen influence in the illicit drug market, they provide a realistic context for the former’s narrative.
Similarly, given Modella’s fictionality, VivaLife Pharma also becomes a fictional component of the story. In the show, the company’s primary purpose was its connection to the production of illegal drugs, allowing the story to make connections between nationwide drug scandals and Big Pharma. In real life, the Indian pharmaceutical industry has faced many scandals in the past, such as the 2022 incident involving contaminated cough syrups of Indian origins in countries like Gambia, Uzbekistan, Cameroon, and more.
More recently, the Aveo Pharmaceuticals company has faced another scandal after they were discovered to be illegally selling a fatal mix of drugs in countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and more. After the discovery, the authorities raided Aveo’s Mumbai-based factory and issued the Stop Production Order to hinder the manufacturing of the drug mix of tapentadol and carisoprodol. Even though this instance of a real-life Indian pharma company’s fatal scandal has no connection to VivaLife, it draws a real-life parallel that further grounds the latter’s storyline in reality. Thus, ‘Dabba Cartel’ ultimately fictionalizes its Big Pharma storyline through fictional elements.
Read More: Is FDSCO a Real Indian Government Agency? Is Ajit Pathak a Real Person?
