Thread by @tauseefwarsi

1/22 - Paatal Lok is a good series; a pretty good one, in fact. There are so many subtleties and nuances the series has captured successfully. So let's keep the plaudits and platitudes for its makers, actors, writers, and other crew aside and look into some finer aspects.

2/22 - Foremost, it's a welcome departure from the genre GOW had spawned - an antisocial as a lovable anti-hero you want to talk about but don't want to be. (Pre-Panama) Amitabh Bachchan in the 70s and 80s created the persona which is widely called the Angry Young Man - a man

3/22 - on the sidelines of the society filled with rage against the system. If he could be the Inspector Vijay one day, he could also be a small-time gangster Anthony Gonsalves on another. Then came the 90s, Ram Gopal Verma, and underworld funds (and death threats). Bollywood

4/22 - produced a clutch of movies that humanised dons, goons, and ruffians - perhaps telling a story that had been ignored for long. GOW was the next major shift - not creating empathy or sympathy for the wrongdoing hero but making us observe him, and sometimes her, from a

5/22 - distance and feel pleased. We then had a slew of series and movies just rehashing the formula in different settings and environments and stereotypes.
Paatal Lok is the first significant departure - one that dwells in much more objectivity when trying to interpret crimes

6/22 - and criminals. No strong UP-Bihar stereotypes, no cool protagonist with a swagger - just a cold and harsh retelling of some stories we don't readily hear.
What it does really well is that it chews a lot and bites all of it properly. A problem with stories told within a

7/22 - restricted time-frame of 9 episodes is you can't deal with many different themes. One often ends up doing injustice to all of them when one could have easily picked up just a single aspect and done much better with it. Think Article 15 - bringing down caste to a single

8/22 - event and then just talking about it. Paatal Lok rakes up caste, religion, and sexuality through the lives of its characters and then drills them into your head. All of these stories hit right in the gut. You end up coming out of it all stirred up but yet not shaken - like

9/22 - a lizard you threw water on.
The show has some poignant scenes that continue to stay with you and yet not haunt you. I will try and recount some of them here.
One of the central characters, Tope Singh, a lower caste, rebels against his upper-caste bullies. He slashes them

10/22 - with a knife when they accost him. When he is attacking one of them, the leader, the bully angrily retorts that if his father comes to know, he will rape Tope Singh's mother. The statement is made in the traditional way misogynist expletives are used around the world and

11/22 - in our country. When the upper caste leaders come seeking revenge, they use the words uttered by the injured bully to rape Tope Singh's mother. The crime of rape as an act of caste-based oppression committed on a frivolity - the writer doesn't even dwell on it for long

12/22 - but somehow creates a lingering effect.
The sexual exploitation of young children is dealt with in the backstory of a sexual minority, Chinni, played so truthfully by Mairembam Ronaldo Singh. When she is a child, she is abandoned at the railway station by her uncle and is

13/22 - "adopted" into their "gang" by some "street urchins". A rickshaw puller named Shakal, takes a fancy on the maybe-10-years-old Chinni. One of the kids tells Chinni to go and meet Shakal upon which her best friend tries to convince others to help stop this horrific crime.

14/22 - The conversation that ensues is nothing but deathly - "we were also her age when we went". The resignation of the children to a grim fate without even realising it and the continuing fight for survival - all of it is a sad reality our shielded existences will never fathom

15/22 - And then there is the Islamophobia. Oh man! what can I say about it. It's done so pretend-subtly, the writers double bluff you into believing they failed in trying to be subtle about it. The misogyny, the oppression - these are not casual in the show. By making the

16/22 - Islamophobia a mix of nonchalant and conspicuous, the show tells a tale which quite a few of my friends will relate to. This angle hinges on a Muslim officer who is preparing for Civil Services and a Muslim criminal who is later on murdered after being labelled a

17/22 - Pakistani terrorist. From comments like "it's good that people like him are doing well; this will help the image of his community" to being called a katua (circumcised), there's just so much to relate to. In one of the scenes where the police are building a fake case of

18/22 - terrorism against the criminal, they claim Jihadi literature has been found on him. When they show the books they claim as Jihadi, readers of Urdu will come across Fazail e Amal (Virtues of Deeds - a book on Islamic practices like prayers and fasting), Bahishti Zevar

19/22 - (books on rituals like prayer and fasting largely aimed at females), and Rozon ke Masail (laws of fasting). This is all too familiar - pass off any Urdu book as Jihadi literature and people will be more than willing to believe. (That the police officer - who knows Urdu -

20/22 - doesn't point this out seems a bit flawed at that point). Towards the end, the criminal's guardian mentions he didn't let him become a true Muslim but the system made him a Jihadi. This reminded me of the dialogue in Manto - "Tum kaun se Muslim ho?" "Itna to hoon ki

21/22 - maara jaaun".
"Religious people" of all flavours and tastes and colours and hues have already had problems with it. Someone has asked Virat Kohli to divorce Anushka Sharma, the producer. Trolls are giving it a low rating and uninstalling Amazon Prime Video.

22/22 - There's enough proof this show gets a lot right. #PaatalLok #PaatalLokReview #Misogny #Caste #Islamophobia