Paatal Lok
Executive producers: Anushka Sharma, Karnesh Sharma, Sudip Sharma
Director: Avinash Arun, Prosit Ray
Cast: Jaideep Ahlawat, Neeraj Kabi, Abhishek Banerjee, Niharika Lyra Dutta, Swastika Mukherjee, Jagjeet Sandhu, Ishwak Singh, Gul Panag, Anurag Arora, Aasif Khan, Bodhisatva Sharma, Mairembam Ronaldo Singh, Anuradha Athlekar, Rishi Kulsheshtra, Vipin Sharma, Asif Basra, Manish Chaudhary, Tushar Dutt
I’m done with watching Paatal Lok. Not really! You are never done with such a piece of art. You can start watching it all over again with same inquisitiveness and new layers of reality will open up every time you watch it. This is a super researched script where I even as an expert of script writing got confused what is fiction and what is reality, what is researched and what is the imagination of the writers. How much can the writer actually see it happening in front of his eyes much before the scenes are shot is quite visible here.
Interesting casting experiment
Abhishek Banerjee and Asif Khan are such actors who have depth and do not really need to speak much to make their presence felt on screen. While Abhishek is in the lead, Asif’s presence makes you demand more from him until the end. Towards the end you find out that it’s a casting experiment, where not just him but a lot of lead characters have been cast in the supporting roles and your mind works overtime all the time about the prime suspect and the possibilities of the unsaid stories of these characters.
Performances that stay
Ansari played by the charming Ishwak Singh from the Delhi theatre circuit is truly a find. Thought process of a young educated and progressive Muslim man is portrayed with complete subtlety by Ishwak.
Anurag Arora as an insecure SHO puts forward a subtle act. The last time I met him was at the NSD’s children festival. He looked excited and glad about his upcoming roles in the web series. After his portrayal of the top cop behind Abhay Deol in Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, it was somehow expected that he will emerge as one of the top leads in the film industry. But he sounded happy and thankful with whatever roles are coming his way.
Monty Baba as the white bearded right hand is also one talent to look out for who is gradually getting his due.
Each and every actor even for the smallest of roles was hand-picked by Abhishek Banerjee and the team of Casting Bay. He knows his craft and that becomes an intangible asset to the entire piece of art called Paatal Lok.
Gul Panag is an absolute fit in whatever is offered to her. If given a choice as a casting director, one could never visualize her wearing a Maxi and portraying the role of a lower middle-class wife of the protagonist Police Inspector.
The 13-year-old boy looks like the new bomb in making. Casting directors of films and web series always have an eye on such powerful characters who speak louder with their silence.
Casting singer Anup Jalota as a politician was a super wise decision. Last seen in Bigg Boss 12, It was perhaps his debut as an actor, to which he did complete justice. In film industry images and stereotypes play an important role and Jalota has just broken his image with the web series, as he rightly said that he is not just a singer but can also emerge as a character actor.
Will it be injustice if I skip to write about the Jaideep Ahlawat, the protagonist Haathiram? Yes, I have deliberately used the article THE before his name. I think his career graph can’t be justified by four lines of my article. So, I better leave it for an entire piece some other time.
Pace it up or not
The slow or fast pace of any film cannot really decide its success, is a fact proven by Paatal Lok. Slow paced crime series is a little tough bait to offer to the Indian audiences who are fed on everyday bread like TV series Crime Patrol. The idea of mentioning Crime Patrol is not to draw any unjustified comparison but to tell the audiences that there’s much more beyond the two hour quick show for solving complicated criminal cases.
The scenery is all real–the local goons, pooja on the ghats of Chitrakoot, middle class society, old Delhi, the Jamuna river ghats and much more added to the reality of the story.
As real as it can be: Minimal background music, real locations
Minimal or rather no background music and the use of the real names of Delhi’s areas make the series more realistic. Although there’s no police station with the name of Jamnapar in reality, the use of the term Jamnapar as the underbelly of sorts is intriguing and thought provoking.
The scenes are so well crafted that you don’t feel as if you are watching a series. You see such scenes happening around you all the time. You get a feeling as if you are standing in a police station, at the ghat, at the circus and at all locations, wherever the series has been shot. All the locations from the jail, lower middle-class apartment, the police station, are so real and there’s not even an iota of superficially imposed elements. Amidst all this reality, while there was no unnecessary violence in the series anywhere, why was the auto driver killed for helping Haathiram? It was beyond my comprehension. There was no reason for it. He could be left to deal with his fate.
Paatal Lok, the name sounds like the underbelly of sorts, but there’s no revelation as such at least in the first two episodes. Yes you have to wait, wait for the right time and keep watching as the things unfold. The reality doesn’t come so fast. It’s a process of sorts and you have to be the part of that journey if you want the revelation of truth.
Why should you watch Paatal Lok?
Respect is the first word that comes to my mind after watching Paatal Lok. When a writer-director places a mentally challenged child on screen in the background as a family member of the supporting cast, his thinking hats are on, his ideology to present the tough realities of society is quite strong, and therefore is to be respected.
REAL is the next possible word for Paatal Lok. From realistic scenes of mob lynching, child sex abuse, marital rape, aspirations of middle class, mentally challenged kid and many others. A lot of Buddhist chanting groups have emerged in the last decade all over India and is a new reality, which no filmmaker had ever captured.
The entire series is a bundle of small complexities being solved gradually in their respective zones. Paatal Lok is not a story, it’s a gamut of stories being played simultaneously. The multilayered and humble past of Cheeni, the adrenal rush of a teenage boy next door, the aspirations of a con girl, all are realistic complexities.
What Taapsi Pannu starrer masterpiece film Thappad took 2 hours to deal with the reality of a slap in marriage, Paatal Lok dealt with it in just two scenes in its own unique style. Like an open and shut case! All those who have watched Thappad and are touched by the subject, will be left thinking what will happen next? What should be the best possible reaction or resolution?
Being a crime series, you should not watch Paatal Lok for that one revelation, which comes in the end but for its entirety from the very beginning. Film making is a craft and so is web series making. New geniuses are being created everyday.
The insecurities of an SHO to save his job and reputation, to play safe and clean, the aspirations of an Inspector from a minority community to be an IPS, the involvement of a low middle class housewife into the failed business of her elder brother, to the exposure of teens to violence and addictions, Paatal Lok is not just about the revelation of certain mafia but it claims to exist in our everyday lives.
Without revealing much, I must say the next time you look at any dog lover anywhere, you are going to bring up the topic of Paatal Lok for sure.
Pataal Lok is available on Amazon Prime Video and started streaming May 15 onwards.
Kamal Pruthi aka Kabuliwala is a character actor with 21 years of stage experience. With more than 300 stage shows to his credit, he is an aspiring Bollywood actor. A multi linguist, Kamal has so far acted in 9 languages and directed 6 plays as a Theatre director. Apart from acting in short and corporate films, Kamal is writing web series these days. Kamal can be contacted on 91-8861907362.