In Sudip Sharma’s Paatal Lok (Now streaming on Amazon. Co written by Sharma, Sagar Haveli, Hardik Mehta and Gunjit Chopra. Directed by Avinash Arun and Prosit Roy), India’s disowned inhabit the headlines we turn away from.
A young boy travelling in a train, lynched over ‘suspicious’ looking meat chunks in his lunch box.
A lower caste boy in a Punjabi village fleeing certain death only to realise he cannot escape one fact. That he is disposable everywhere.
And his mother. Left behind to be gang raped as a punishment for having borne him.
The young girls in a distant UP village whose violation is a tactical move in a land dispute.
The local journalist with his ear to the ground, threatened and hounded for telling the truth.
A transgender child, abandoned in a train, surviving on dreams, play acting like a little goddess to get alms, being violated again and again on the streets.
Imran Ansari (an earnest Ishwak Singh ), a Kashmiri Civil Services aspirant reminiscent of Shah Faesal, trying to un see and un hear the uncivil jibes against “his kind”.
Trying not to take it personally when a well-meaning interview coach advises him to not comment decisively on the “state of minorities” in the country. And to stay “progressive and positive.” .
He stays quiet even when a CBI official patronises him with a comment about how a slot in Civil Services will “improve the image of your community.” Because only the minorities must worry about the image they paint.
Still he cannot help flinching imperceptibly when his senior beats up a Muslim convict and abuses him with a commonly used and very specific cuss word.
And the other India safe in its privilege.
The social hypocrisy of the powerful who advocate meditation and positivity after looking away from absurd levels of cruelty.
Because , acknowledging reality somehow is negative while shrugging at it with a smile is the positivity the country needs.
And there is the journalism of wining and dining, air conditioned offices, compromise, perception management, occasional comments about Gauri Lankesh and how scribes that were once heroes are now mocked and sent death threats on Twitter.
The media narratives that cannot survive without mentioning ISI and Pakistan.
And the politics of opportunism.
The Dalit saviour who travels with cans of Ganga jal to bathe in after he has dined with one of his constituents.
The fixers in the state systems that frame innocents, float fake news and wash off trails of blood before they can reach anywhere.
As a senior police officer says, “baahar se yeh system sada gala lagta hai par iske andar aakar pata chalta hai ki yeh ek well-oiled machine hai jahan har purze ko apna role pata hai. Aur jinhe nahin aata, unhe replace kar diya jaata hai.(The system seems rotten from outside but once you become a part of it, you realise it is a well-oiled machine where everyone knows their part. And those who do not are replaced.)
Women are incidental in this netherworld.
They are preys, baits, observers, care givers. Every form of verbal abuse in the series is about their body parts. But some of them fight back.
The feisty journalist (Niharika Lyra Dutt exuding both disillusionment and courage) who walks out of a job that is no longer about facts.
The anxious, unloved wife (Swastika Mukherjee ) who finds that caring for a stray fulfils her more than the futile battle to win her husband back from fame, casual affairs and self-importance.
The middle class wife (A miscast Gul Panag) who doesn’t know what toxic misogyny is but recognises it and when hit by her husband, hits him back.
This is a bleak narrative.
The images haunt because they remind us of something that has possibly already happened to someone. There is little or no hope offered for the future except that even flawed protagonists like Inspector Hathi Ram Chaudhary (Jaideep Ahlawat owning every frame he is in) and idealists like Imran will somehow steer us all towards self-enquiry. And remind us that India is not just for the privileged but even those who have none. And that sometimes even a small gesture of feeding a stray can remind us of our shared humanity.
The thought that this series (produced by Anushka Sharma) has been inspired by a Tarun Tejpal book is unsettling but Paatal Lok is undeniably Sudip Sharma’s visionscape. This is a more expansive exploration of the themes that Sharma touched upon in NH 10. And it is undeniably about the country we now live in. That is a fact we cannot argue with or run away from anymore.
*Reema is the editor and co-founder of Unboxed Writers, the author of Perfect Eight, the editor of Chicken Soup for the Soul-Indian Women, a translator who recently interpreted Dominican poet Josefina Baez’s book Comrade Bliss Ain’t Playing in Hindi, an RJ and an artist who has exhibited her work in India and the US . She won an award for her writing/book from the Public Relations Council of India in association with Bangalore University, has written for a host of national and international magazines since 1994 on cinema, theatre, music, art, architecture and more. She hopes to travel more and to grow more dimensions as a person. And to be restful, and alive in equal measure.