Dussehra this year is shaping up to be a complete Yami Gautam moment, and not in the way you would expect. Forget playing a Devi, because this time she is stepping into the shoes of a Daayan instead. The trailer for her upcoming film Nayyi Navelli just dropped, and it already looks like one of the most refreshing festive releases on the calendar.
The story is set in a small town somewhere in Northern India, where Yami’s character enters a new household as the ideal daughter-in-law. She is shown to be effortlessly good at everything, from managing the home to simply being likeable around her new family.
Her husband, played by Adinath Kothare, seems more than happy with how things are going. But one person in the family just cannot buy into the perfection on display.
He keeps questioning how anyone can be this flawless, and his suspicion eventually turns into full-blown conviction that she is not human at all, but a witch. That is where things start getting genuinely interesting.
Instead of brushing it off, the trailer actually leans into the accusation, and we get to see glimpses of Yami’s character embracing her supernatural side and even going head to head with Raavan himself.
Dussehra, as most of us grew up knowing, celebrates the defeat of Raavan and the win of good over evil. So watching a film twist that familiar story into something this playful feels like a clever move. The trailer ends on a particularly fun note, with someone asking Yami’s character who she truly is, and she simply smirks back with a cheeky line, basically telling them to stop overthinking and just enjoy the ride.
That energy really sums up what Nayyi Navelli seems to be going for. It blends myth, fantasy, and old folk tales most of us grew up hearing but gives them a fresh, chaotic spin. The film comes from a strong creative team too, with Aanand L. Rai and Himanshu Sharma backing it alongside Amazon MGM Studios, and Balaji Mohan taking the director’s chair.
It also helps that Yami Gautam has been on quite a roll lately, picking roles that genuinely surprise audiences, something that earned her the National Award for Best Actress not too long ago. If this trailer is any indication, Nayyi Navelli could end up being another one of those unexpected wins for her.
If quirky, out-of-the-box festive entertainers are your thing this season, there is plenty more to look forward to. The trailer for Udta Teer recently dropped too, bringing its own brand of spy comedy chaos to theatres around the same time.
And if you prefer something a little more grounded, the trailer for Reporting Live shows Parineeti Chopra taking on a very different kind of risk, this time for the sake of truth rather than tradition.
As for Nayyi Navelli, audiences will have to wait until October 16 to see how this Daayan story actually unfolds on the big screen. Based on the trailer alone, though, it already looks like Yami Gautam has another box office winner on her hands.