Ploughing deeper into Paatal Lok

Jaideep Ahlawat as Hathi Ram Chaudhary in the second season of Paatal Lok

There is a scene in Prime Video's killer Paatal Lok 2 where, shortly after murder of a bigwig in New Delhi's Nagaland Sadan/House, a young doctor stares at the body in the morgue.

She tells her senior, maybe, this could be death executed to send a message.

In the same way that in the 1960s, there used to be headhunting tribes in Nagaland. She saw this in a Nat Geo documentary. Although unsaid, this refers to the Konyak tribe. Usually, one comes across homages/tributes in shows/movies we like, and turn to them after.

I had to ask Paatal Lok creator, Sudip Sharma, hence, if there is such a National Geographic documentary! I did discover a three-minute Nat Geo clip online on how American Christian missionaries sort of helped put an end to the heinous, human headhunting practice in Nagaland.

Sudip Sharma, the creator of the series

Sudip says, "I've seen a lot of documentaries [on headhunting Konyaks]. But Nat Geo [specifically]? It just felt cool to say it!"

It helps that Sudip is originally from the North East, namely Guwahati, Assam. His father moved in the early '70s, and he studied there until Std X. "We were outsiders," he says. Which is an odd thing to say, since he was born in Assam!

I wonder if that scene in Paatal Lok 2 - where a Marwari businessman, Bajoria, terms himself an "outsider", while he was born in Nagaland too - is somewhat inspired by his own life.

Sudip says, "That character comes from my childhood best friend's father, who was gunned down [by rebels]. It was a visceral experience for me. This is '80s-'90s Assam; ULFA at its peak, insider-outsider conflict, etc. Things were really bad then. I've seen those [political] undercurrents, up-close."

Unlike its prequel, that was set in Delhi's lower-deck Jamnapaar area/thana, the eight-part Paatal Lok 2 is a political drama predominantly set/shot in Nagaland. Which, as Sudip puts it, has no TV/theatre/film industry, let alone production infrastructure.

The "sleepless nights" for Sudip began with hiring actors itself, wherein casting-agent Nikita Grover spent months auditioning in Nagaland: "She'd become a local, eventually. You can't find actors; you have to create them, from history professor, rappers, musicians, grocery shop-owners," Sudip recalls.

The sequel took six years to go from script to screen. In the interim, Sudip delivered an equally knock-out, Kohrra (2023), as authentically placed in Punjab, starring the gentle giant Suvinder Vikki (with Barun Sobti). The second season of which is currently underway.

Besides fine locals, my favourite piece of casting in Paatal Lok 2 has to be Assam's best-known filmmaker, Jahnu Barua, debuting as Uncle Ken - sparring, on occasion, with director-actor Nagesh Kukunoor onscreen! That was, apparently, the show's director-cinematographer Avinash Arun Dhaware's idea.

Paatal Lok 2, as a series, is suitably complex, sharply structured. It's immaterial, if you're always joining every dot among several strands in the screenplay, that's building plot over plot. Good enough, if you're engaged, throughout. As you are.

And that's because each episode, with a beginning, middle, end, feels like a complete story - over and above the running narrative arc of the wider series/season.

I suspect that's what separates web-series from films, that are far more focussed - in terms of central plot; chiefly concentrating on striking moments.

Also, why, I guess, we remember scene after scene from memorable movies. It's inevitably the characters that leave an indelible impact from a show.

In the middle of this, of course, is the haggard, rugged Haryanvi, Inspector Hathi Ram Chaudhary, "permanent nivasi/resident of paatal lok (netherworld)," blessed with mettle and an elephantine memory.

As in, the towering, deeply internalised, Jaideep Ahlawat, strongly shouldering an entire season. His polar-opposite, adorably quiet/genteel buddy-cop, Imran Ansari (Ishwak Singh), joins in as well.

This is still a slightly different Hathi Ram, though, if you notice. Sudip points out, "He's more at peace. Maturity does that to you, given all that you've been through before. The world is what it is. We needed the character to grow. In the first Paatal Lok, Hathi Ram, like me, came from an angry space."

That Paatal Lok was based on the book, The Story of My Assassins, by former journalist, rape-accused, Tarun Tejpal. And this was my prime issue with the series. While the source was obvious/well-known, at no point (in the opening/closing) was the author credited for that season.

I suppose the producers/streamer feared getting ‘cancelled', in woke-speak, if they were found to be platforming a rape-accused?

To usurp credit thus is not the same as separating the art from the artiste; no matter where you stand on that debate. Why borrow someone's art, at all, since you find the artiste deplorable?

Sudip, who, I'm pretty sure, had little/nothing to do with the credit call, on his part, clarifies, "I owe a huge debt to The Story of My Assassins. There would've been no show, if there wasn't the book."

As for Paatal Lok 3, he says, "There's still a lot of Hathi Ram left in me. Many variables have to fall in place, though."

If he takes another half a decade, it would still be worth the wait. As Paatal Lok 2 has turned out to be. Especially dropping at a time, when we'd begun to believe in the ‘curse of the (crappy) second season', for most shows, anyway.

Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.