From a million stories around us

Nonika Singh

The genre is the same — crime thriller. The protagonist is once again a washed out cop. So, comparisons with series like Sacred Games are perhaps inevitable. But as team Paatal Lok gets ready to meet the audiences’ expectations upped by its tantalising trailer, both its show-runner and lead actors beg to differ — adamant and earnest in belief that what they have on offer is dramatically different from what the viewers have seen before.

Sudip Sharma, the creator and writer of the upcoming Amazon Prime series Paatal Lok , agrees, “On the surface level, yes, some things may seem similar. However, Paatal Lok is different conceptually, and in tone and tenor, even more so.” But, as sex, violence and vulgarity are becoming synonymous with web series Paatal Lok may not be much different. Sudip, who has earlier written gritty NH10 and Udta Punjab, shares, “This is no more violent or profane than my previous work. But I have no intentions of glorifying violence. The idea is to gross you out with it, so you develop revulsion, and question its existence and where it is coming from.”

Of course, as the series marries politics, media and the grim and grime of crime, we wonder if certain characters are real. Sudip insists, “Paatal Lok is fictional, only drawn from our world. It is a million stories around us.” Thus one of the key characters, the high profile journalist in the series, is not any particular editor but just representative of the liberal English media. Sudip elaborates, “I am only wondering aloud; what went wrong with these people who were our heroes not too long ago and what are their choices today?”

Daring to look at the fault-lines in our socio-polity, questioning the class, caste and religious divides, Paatal Lok can’t be expected to toe the politically correct line and, so, could ruffle feathers. But Sudip’s Udta Punjab experience has made him familiar with both censure and censor. Nothing can ever dissuade him from saying what he wants to and what he believes in, precisely why he teamed up with Anushka Sharma who has produced Paatal Lok .“We are in it for the right reasons.” If writing and helming a web-series is liberating, challenging and fulfilling, the brickbats if any too, he says,“are par for the course.”

Reality bite

“I have been rejected many times.” When actor and casting director Abhishek Banerjee says so, the idea is not to revel in self-deprecation. Only to reinforce how each actor is not a perfect fit for every character. Only when Sudip decided to cast him as the merciless antagonist Hathoda Tyagi in Paatal Lok, even Abhishek was wee bit taken aback. It is not as if he has not played a dark character before. Rather his very first was exactly that. But more so since Sudip locked him after watching Stree in which Abhishek was the comic actor.

He says, “Perhaps, that is how good creators blur the line of typecasting.” Besides, Abhishek has no issues inhabiting dark spaces. Only he keeps questioning his characters, ‘why so much rage’, their motives. No not to justify them, rather, “I play them violent and horrific not heroic.” But yes each character would have something you can latch on to. Abhishek can identify with Tyagi’s patience. “I am not a man in hurry,” he quips. But with a steady line-up of films, including Dostana 2 and Aankh Micholi, a busy man he sure is.

Kuch kahi kuch unkahi

Man of the moment, he is quite clearly enjoying it. Jaideep Ahlawat, actor of many superhits such as Raazi, Gangs of Wasseypur and Rockstar, finally gets to play the lead protagonist of a Haryanvi cop. Hathiram Chaudhary, he describes, is someone who is around us all the time, whom we see but know little about. A Haryanvi playing one on screen, indeed all it took him were two days to get back into the Haryanvi groove.

But getting into the skin of this vulnerable character whose journey is internal and external, personal as well as professional was a huge challenge. Gratifying too, for the part is so well written, so incredibly fleshed out. Rather he wholeheartedly applauds the sterling writing of the series and adds, “Intelligent and symbolic. Kuch kahi kuch unkahi, it is 100 per cent on par with global standards.” A FTII graduate, who has given cent per cent to each part, his advice to aspiring actors from his region is, “Come prepared and trained, as you would for any other job.”

nonikasingh@tribunemail.com