The Hoichoi web series Boyfriends & Girlfriends is a coming-of-age story of 20-something childhood best friends Amit, Soumya and Bunty who go through life, relationships and work post-college in a journey of self-discovery and learn the value of friendship.
Ujaan (Riddhi Sen), coming from an affluent family, decides to quit his job and pursue the uncertainty of being a singer-songwriter and sets out on a journey of becoming self-sufficient. His journey takes him to Amrita (Ishaa Saha). Together they get into a relationship without knowing about each other’s goals and skeletons from the past. On the other hand, Soumya (Rwitobroto Mukherjee) is torn between dating his father’s business partner’s daughter Shreya and seeing Riya, who happens to be Amit’s ex-girlfriend and the pursuits of this complication eventually creates drama not just in his relationship but majorly within the friends.
Bunty is the group’s mediator and starts dating Sumana. With these haphazard events of life that unfurls, their friendship grows to be stronger than ever. These boyfriends and girlfriends, through their journey of love lost and found, find themselves in the process. The series, which streams from September 3 on Hoichoi, is written and designed by Mainak Bhaumik.
How is the director of films like Maach Mishti & More and Ami Aar Amar Girlfriends looking at modern love in this series? “As a fan of Modern Love the show and the generation, Boyfriends & Girlfriends is me desperately trying to understand the youth of today and judge how far away are they from me. And to me I think the essential difference is the need to be on social media. Toxicity and Insta quotes are more a word thrown around for kicks. But to be honest the beauty of love and friendship is like good music. It’s the same and timeless . That the feeling of falling in love is as euphoric and falling out is as heartbreaking as it’s always been except I think it’s a little difficult to move through the maze of existing in social media and that becomes a trap.
“Every now and then between movies it’s nice to go back in a time machine and see myself through this prism. To smell like teen spirit. To want to create such a show was just to see can I still understand them. And I got a fabulous cast,” says Mainak. Suvankar Paul has directed the series.