Aahana Swrup
‘Dabba Cartel’ is a Netflix Hindi show that charts the story of an unlikely network of drug dealers who move their products through inconspicuous lunchbox deliveries. Raji and her group of fellow middle-class women become inadvertent drug dealers overnight after a messy encounter with local drug lord Chavan. Fortunately for them, the woman’s mother-in-law, Sheila, seems to have some experience from a past abandoned life that gradually turns their small business into a raging success.
However, their fates eventually collide with the federal investigation into VivaLife Pharma, a company suspected to be related to the production of a widespread illegal painkiller, spelling out looming danger. In the investigation into the Big Pharma company, its connections to the XIPRO Laboratories and past manufacturing of the Stravinol drug threaten to become VivaLife’s doom. Consequently, these elements end up defining the show’s pharmaceutical worldbuilding, adding substance to VivaLife’s storyline.
XIPRO Laboratories is a Fictional Element That Expands VivaLife’s Storyline
One of the primary storylines in ‘Dabba Cartel,’ which revolves around the corrupt practices of a pharmaceutical company, remains a fictionalized aspect of the show. The narrative purpose of VivaLife and its direct role in the production of a fatally addictive painkiller mirror certain off-screen Big Pharma scandals. Still, since the details surrounding the scandal are fictitious, there aren’t firm real-life counterparts for the characters, companies, and other elements involved in this storyline. Thus, XIPRO Laboratories is confined within the show’s fictional borders. In real life, no similarly christened factories focus on outsourcing packaging for a particular Indian pharmaceutical company.
In the show, XIPRO Laboratories is a packaging company that VivaLife creates as a tax evasion method. Therefore, despite a visible disconnection from the factory, the pharma company retains notable influence over the other company’s creation. Although there aren’t any records of a similar connection between a pharmaceutical production and a packaging company, many other instances of tax evasion methods persist. For instance, in 2023, authorities found nine pharmaceutical manufacturing companies in Dehradun to be responsible for tax evasion worth more than ₹60,000.
These companies were found to be faking bills of procuring pharma packing materials from Delhi, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh-based companies. Furthermore, four out of nine of these companies were discovered to be simple ploys for tax evasion and had no real existence. Therefore, while legitimate companies exist in the Indian pharmaceutical packaging industry—such as EPL Limited, Huhtamaki India Ltd, and more—the employment of corruption relating to pharma packaging also presents a relevant issue. Even though the on-screen storyline revolving around XIPRO Laboratories doesn’t have any direct origins, in reality, it retains a grounded feel.
Stravinol is Not a Real Painkiller Drug
Similar to other narrative elements within the show, Stravinol, the painkiller drug that VivaLife is responsible for, is also a work of fiction. However, the painkiller drug has relevant parallels in real life. Stravinol is an opioid painkiller drug that VivaLife used to produce for the US market. Nonetheless, after its production got shut down due to complications, the company secretly drifted to packaging it as Modella, an illegal drug that took over the Indian market. Consequently, when Modella’s menacing effects become prominent, it inevitably lands the parent pharmaceutical company in hot waters.
The audience can find a close real-life parallel to Stravinol in the off-screen painkiller drug Tramadol. It’s an opioid pain medication that has severe habit-forming properties. Due to its potential for misuse as an addiction alternative, the Indian Government declared it a Psychotropic Substance in 2018. However, in 2022, authorities found a manufacturing plant in New Delhi was illegally creating Tramadol to be sold as disguised Ayurvedic Medicines. Consequently, even though the context differs, Tramadol was involved in an illegal scandal that is similar to Stravinol’s on-screen narrative. Ultimately, although the two drugs aren’t directly connected, Tramadol offers a real-life context for the on-screen drug’s fictitious storyline.
Read More: Is Modella a Real Drug? Is VivaLife a Pharma Company?
