By now, it is clear that writer and show creator Sudip Sharma loves a setting oozing with melancholic grit. His stories are remarkably the byproducts of a very specific time and place, and a central character is often left unattended, like an abandoned child, in these contexts to teeter, fall, rise, perceive and somehow collide with the ever-evasive truth. Truth is, indeed, the operative word for Sharma who likes to keep it concealed in plain sight, sometimes even teasing that it never existed the way that said central character visualised it to be.
Hathi Ram Chaudhary (Jaideep Ahlawat), the lowly inspector from North Delhi, then came to embody this spirit of slow decay and disillusionment in the first season (2020) of the Amazon Prime original Paatal Lokwhich pitted him against a gigantic mirage of hope and justice. In the proceedings, Chaudhary became a pawn (along with other dwellers of the under-realm or the underworld of human existence) in a carefully etched decoy involving top politicians, journalists, cops, criminals and the works, only to emerge a disenchanted middle-aged loser who bit so much more than he was ever fed. But being disillusioned is any day better than being oblivious, and Chaudhary realises that having worked tirelessly for years, his life direly needed a sense of clarity more than any laurel.
Season 2 of Paatal Lok handholds him once again into a new abyss that is as intricate and murky as the previous one, except that it is far, far away from home. A business summit is underway in New Delhi where a handful of high-profile bureaucrats are carefully orchestrating a foreign investment deal worth Rs 20,000 crore with political and business bigwigs of Nagaland. The deal is crucial not just for the present and the future of the state but also for its past, given its long history of conflicts, insurgencies and identity struggles. But a grisly murder occurs at the summit to jeopardise it all, to invite a kind of upheaval that the region doesn’t need or deserve at this point.
Imran Ansari (Ishwak Singh), now an ACP, is tasked with cracking the case and proving that he is a lot more than what his cherubic demeanour projects, particularly when Kapil Reddy (Nagesh Kukunoor), the Special Advisor to Govt. of India, is dialling up the pressure. Ansari has moved on to greener pastures but his former mentor/senior Hathi Ram Chaudhary is stuck in limbo, battling self-doubt with self-worth at every turn and barely clinging on to his trademark idealism. A woman comes to him with a five-year-old boy by her side saying that her husband, a lower-caste man named Raghu Paswan, is missing for a few days. It is a seemingly simple case but a piece of evidence proves that the murder Ansari is trying to solve and the disappearance of this man have a connection somehow, both pointing towards the fact that the answers lie in the simmering present-day reality of Nagaland. Hathi Ram is hardly the right man to navigate this terrain but Ansari’s company helps, and soon an investigation begins.
The gaze on Nagaland
One of the main tasks for Avinash Arun Dhaware, the director and cinematographer of all eight episodes of Season 2would have been to organically embed the setting of cities like Kohima and Dimapur into the narrative, and avoid using them as decorative, exotic tools. Dhaware’s camera work is fittingly unhurried and non-intrusive, allowing Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor’s dark, swelling electronica and solemn piano-laced soundtrack to accentuate the mood. For both him and the writing team, the task at hand isn’t just to justify the setting with a story that demands it, but to also bring it to life with the same furious potency that made the seedy Delhi and beyond visually striking in the first instalment.
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The intent, too, is clear from the outset: to utilise the last bit of curiosity in Hathi Ram Chaudhary and place it at the crossroads of familiarity and unawareness. Raghu Paswan is a man that Chaudhary recognises very well but the myriad locals in Nagaland — from the tempestuous youth political leader Reuben Thom (LC Sekhose) to Kohima’s obstinate police in-charge Meghna Barua (Tillotama Shome in a seen-before role) and the stone-cold sniper assassin Daniel (former Indian Idol contestant Prashant Tamang) — are hard to crack or deal with for him. Season 2 initially makes a slick foray into this culture shock but isn’t fully successful in covering it from all angles, mainly because of the denseness of its plot. With a murder investigation, a keen understanding of the social hierarchy of Nagaland, the personal lives of the principal characters and so much more on the drawing board, the show ends up overlooking the chief facet of the first season: of being able to create a world in which every character is an individual of significance.
What made Season 1 truly tick was how it placed a clueless figure that is Chaudhary at the centre to then carefully branch out into the many constituents that form the social order around us. The backstories were essential to prove that a Hathoda Tyagi, a Sanjeev Mehra or a Mary Lyngdoh/Cheenu are victims of brutal circumstances. One of Season 2’s major disappointments is that Dhaware doesn’t take us to the same visceral proximity to the characters that he and Prosit Ray achieved previously, nor does he ensure that the overall cadence of Nagaland life hits the intended mark.
Weaker start, stronger end
As a result, the new season unfolds for a majority of its narrative as a familiar police procedural. Chaudhary and Ansari’s personal equation, which is kicked off on a slightly awkward note given the shift in the chain of command, forms the crux in a way, allowing their relationship to make tender observations towards gender roles and politics. Shome’s Meghna Barua is curt and unyielding to add some zing to the mix, and some of Season 2’s brightest moments arise when these three superbly talented actors are in control. That said, the lack of a strong peripheral conflict, especially the one involving Kapil Reddy’s dubious involvement in the mess and the grim familial conundrum of the Thoms, rids Season 2 of its predecessor’s delicious layering and mood.
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Yet, the narrative ploughs on and that is essentially on the back of Jaideep Ahlawat’s spirited, impeccably heartfelt performance. The arc that Chaudhary endures through Season 2 is interesting, to say the least, considering that his character sometimes feels burdened by the worldviews of those behind the scenes. Hathi Ram is still the frantic soul that we met nearly five years ago but the saviour complex in him only evolves as the story progresses, at times making it a tad unbelievable that he is not only able to unravel an extremely complicated mystery completely on his own, but also strut his physical might while at it. Ahlawat, regardless, remains flawless as ever.
Paatal Lok Season 2 carries the weighty potential of matching the first season’s high-standard writing and filmmaking. The 2020 release was a primer to the Indian viewer in several regards, mainly affirming that long-form storytelling is a great resource if employed by the right minds. Season 2 attempts something that sparingly few pieces of work have dared attempt: to explore and demystify a region with dedication and heart. In this rare expedition, it gets certain key aspects wrong and veers off course at times, but it is nevertheless a ponderous watch that warrants one’s full attention. It is full of small and large moments that either complement or compensate for one another, and that alone is a clincher.
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