Apr 03, 2026 12:52pm IST
‘Maa Ka Sum’ Review: Mona Singh, Mihir Ahuja’s Mother-Son Equation Is The Heart of This Drama
A son using his beautiful mind to hack a dating algorithm so his single mother can find the perfect partner? It’s the kind of fresh spin on the ‘math prodigy who doesn’t factor in love’ premise that intrigued me about Prime Video’s newest series, “Maa Ka Sum,” directed by Nicholas Kharkongo and written by Ravinder Randhawa and Sumrit Shahi. But echoing the show’s conclusion, it wasn’t the math but the easy chemistry between Mona Singh’s Vinita and Mihir Ahuja’s Agastya that kept me seated for this coming-of-age story.
Agastya (Ahuja), or “Gust” as his loved ones call him, thinks purely in numbers. His single mom, Vinita (Singh), is a real estate agent who keeps it real with him and treats him like the adult he is. They have the kind of cool mother-son relationship where they share designated driver duties and even talk about their dating lives. Vini’s pattern of failed relationships and resulting mood swings has convinced Gust that he needs to use his math to save her (and himself) from the heartbreak. He’s working on an algorithm that hacks a popular dating app and gets his mother’s profile the best matches, finally leading to The One.
The arrival of Ira (Angira Dhar), a new professor offering a relevant course at his college, is the missing piece of the puzzle for Gust. Their collaboration could solve his problem. But he soon learns that you can have all the data, and your math might be 'mathing’, but you can never truly factor in how emotions like love, desire or fear might change the outcome.
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We’ve seen this before—the mathematician who understands numbers but is unable to comprehend the nuances of human emotion until all goes to crap in their life. Often, the hubris stems from math never failing them. In “Maa Ka Sum,” Mihir Ahuja mounts a nuanced performance as Agastya; he is sufficiently endearing and even charming in his cockiness, as the show’s interesting opening scene proves, where he talks a fellow student off the ledge. But it is in the emotional moments and the co-dependent mother-son relationship that Agastya shares with Mona Singh’s Vini that the show finds its heart.
After “Kohrra” season 2 (in which her character loses her teenage son), it’s almost cathartic to watch Singh play mom to a young adult. It isn’t a typical 'supermom' role but actually humanises her to the point of folly. In several scenes, her character’s casual attitude borders on frustrating, and you support Agastya’s desperation to stabilise his mother’s life. In other scenes, Agastya seems less like her son and more like one of those overbearing, controlling "men of the house" that scare women into submission. It’s something the show touches upon but doesn’t fully explore, and we are expected to assume that it’s a behavioral problem that fixes itself the moment Agastya sees the error of his ways.
With its 30-something-minute eight episodes, "Maa Ka Sum" packs in much more than just an exploration of a young college-going prodigy’s life. The lived-in homes and college campus, the lingo, and the music all come together to make this world feel textured and real, not one that's trying too hard. There are themes around love, sex, unwanted pregnancies, privilege, young-adult depression and how deeply good or bad parenting can impact young minds, making them grow up a little too soon.
However, these themes are merely touch-and-go, often like a coming-of-age checklist, which can make the show’s subplots feel thin, and its number of episodes feel unearned. Ranveer Brar as Abhimanyu, the curveball in Vini’s life that throws Agastya’s "Project Mom" into a tizzy, is charming alongside Singh, which makes Agastya’s dislike toward him feel all the more outrageous. Angira Dhar’s professor, Ira, also has great chemistry with Ahuja’s Agastya. It is interesting to see how the series explored their teacher-student dynamic, going beyond the usual irresistible attraction and complicated power dynamics to factoring in the math behind their compatibility. However, the supporting characters could do with a little more definition than what's on paper.
I am not surprised that the math in “Maa Ka Sum” absolutely eludes me, not because I dislike the subject, but also because rarely has any film or series tried to make it easier to follow for the dummies. “Maa Ka Sum” sticks to its emotional strengths, and it mostly works, if not for its tone in the second half. It could do with some levity and clever humor that made, say, a “Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na” hit the sweet spot while still saying everything it needed to. And yet, despite the final answer not being totally correct, Maa Ka Sum remains an endearing watch that gets points for the steps.
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