S1 - The Aura of the Man JAIDEEP AHLAWAT. Finally got happy to see an Indian Show with depth in character writing. The maturity of the story is just too good. The Backstory of all the victims was very shocking and good. Overall, a brilliant show which sticks to its name and doesn't back away to show the cruelty of the world.

i have always felt that amazon prime had an upper-hand when it comes to Indian web series.. and with this gem of series Paatal Lok ..they have proved me right.. story and screenplay - it has everything from corporate media hovering to next door family drama.. is so well written it wont be wrong to say .. its one of the best series streaming now on any platform of simply topnotch. dialogues are simple, grounded and razor sharp and witty when needed. one of the sure shot hit dialogue will be from this series "Waise toh yeh shastron mein likha tha, par maine WhatsApp pe padha" Its narrative touches topics such as sociopolitical stigma, caste based politics, lower class to upper class tantrum, typical liberal attitudes ..discrimination .. and it points out that all this have become so casual and routine that most of us don't even notice or care.. that its happening around us .. Special mention Jaideep Ahlawat ..huge respect.. portrayal of hathi ram will be one of the most memorable character.

After a 5-year hiatus, the cop drama comes back stronger and more refined, continuing to weave together police procedural narratives, the inner experiences of its residents, and external societal influences. This season stands apart from the first, featuring a denser plot and more extensive inquiry. It handles political themes effectively without being preachy. Jaideep Ahlawat shines brilliantly, and Ishwak Singh, Tilottama Shome, and Anurag Arora also give solid performances.

Paatal Lok - Season 1 (2020): This show is the definition of a masterpiece web series. It is the near perfect blend of length and curiosity. The show never feels dragged or boring. It is created very well and cleverly that it will keep you thinking for awhile. The acting is definitely top notch. There characters are all interesting, not a single character feels out of place. Now that’s how you make a full on engaging web/tv series. The plot is perfect and fits well into the atmosphere created by the screenplay and followed meticulously by the directing. The background score helps the show keep even more intense. The series is dark and doesn’t shy away from any truth. The show created a selective fan base. Most of the audience enjoyed it, but if they didn’t, then they hated it (could be due to the controversial and dark scenes shown). The critics average rating is 4 out of 5 stars. Which is one of the highest rated show by critics of all time. The web show definitely cannot be watched with family. There’s sexual content (implicit and explicit), frequent use of adult language, intense violence and physical abuse, and use of drugs/alcohol. This is a show that is not worth missing. If you are a fan of dark crime thriller web series and/or films, this show is definitely worth a watch.

#PataalLok2 2nd season of investigation drama, again it doesn't tries to b a thriller at any point, which s its pro n con. Some intresting moments n twists r thr. Bt overall its strictly for procedural drama lovers. Being not a big fan of 1st season, this also felt just.. Ok!!! #PataalLok2 2nd season of investigation drama, again it doesn't tries to b a thriller at any point, which s its pro n con. Some intresting moments n twists r thr. Bt overall its strictly for procedural drama lovers. Being not a big fan of 1st season, this also felt just.. Ok!!!

This another season of murder mystery thriller series named as पाताल लोक staring one of the most talented actor of a country, Jaideep Alhawat , Ishwak Singh and Anurag Arora. This season follow-ups about the murder which revolves around a political and social situation in Nagaland and it is mostly revolves around the Naga peoples and Nagaland. Let me first talk about the things that I love in this season that they still kept intact, the humour, the real reality and the dialogue delivery of Jaideep. And sometimes I feel if you overdo things that could be also the problem in the content. The screenplay and the the storyline was filled with so many elements and revolve around everywhere, not a single character is left behind uncanon. Although I feel that this series could be end in six episode, but this stretched to the eight, which makes a two or three episodes lack in interest. The climate of the series was good and it is stretch long which I liked because the twist and turns keep coming in the last two episode, which was interesting to see like how the case revolves. The bad thing about that is only the second act, which was the middle episodes of the series, which was lacking in interest and undercooked. If I talk about the performances, Jaideep, top notch as always think that I was action of the of the series, which was kept real by the director and the cinematographer, but the direction seem okay to me. This season make you catch up and leave you in the middle, and then again it will catch you. If you was a season one, and if I had to compare this season with the season one, it is not leave up to its legacy and the essence of season one handsdown season one was the best . And he was season one and want to follow up this series. You can watch it. It’s a decent average season, not like the OG.

How this Hathi Ram Chaudhary Jaideep Ahlawat heartbreaker wholly defies the curse of the crappy second season! Jaideep Ahlawat as Hathi Ram Chaudhary in the second season of Paatal Lok There is a scene in Prime Videos killer Paatal Lok 2 where, shortly after murder of a bigwig in New Delhis Nagaland SadanHouse, 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 homagestributes in showsmovies 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, Ive 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 2where a Marwari businessman, Bajoria, terms himself an outsider, while he was born in Nagaland toois somewhat inspired by his own life. Sudip says, That character comes from my childhood best friends 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. Ive seen those political undercurrents, up-close. Unlike its prequel, that was set in Delhis lower-deck Jamnapaar areathana, the eight-part Paatal Lok 2 is a political drama predominantly setshot in Nagaland. Which, as Sudip puts it, has no TVtheatrefilm 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 Shed become a local, eventually. You cant 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 Assams best-known filmmaker, Jahnu Barua, debuting as Uncle Kensparring, on occasion, with director-actor Nagesh Kukunoor onscreen! That was, apparently, the shows director-cinematographer Avinash Arun Dhawares idea. Paatal Lok 2, as a series, is suitably complex, sharply structured. Its immaterial, if youre always joining every dot among several strands in the screenplay, thats building plot over plot. Good enough, if youre engaged, throughout. As you are. And thats because each episode, with a beginning, middle, end, feels like a complete storyover and above the running narrative arc of the wider seriesseason. I suspect thats what separates web-series from films, that are far more focussedin terms of central plot chiefly concentrating on striking moments. Also, why, I guess, we remember scene after scene from memorable movies. Its 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 nivasiresident 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 quietgenteel 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, Hes more at peace. Maturity does that to you, given all that youve 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 obviouswell-known, at no point in the openingclosing was the author credited for that season. I suppose the producersstreamer 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 someones art, at all, since you find the artiste deplorable? Sudip, who, Im pretty sure, had littlenothing to do with the credit call, on his part, clarifies, I owe a huge debt to The Story of My Assassins. There wouldve been no show, if there wasnt the book. As for Paatal Lok 3, he says, Theres 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 wed 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 mailbagmid-day.com The views expressed in this column are the individuals and dont represent those of the paper. https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/ploughing-deeper-into-paatal-lok-23469400

What's a thriller, but a plot with so much at stake for characters involved, that by the time a movie's budget hits max, the existence of the whole planet depends on it! In that sense, Paatal Lok (shouldn't it be Pataal Lok?), appears aimed at quite a low-stakes game. A lot like Dibakar Banerjee's Shanghai (2012; which in turn was based on Costa-Gavras' Z), if you may. What was that about?Murder of a local, bookseller/academic. What's this about? A thwarted plot to assassinate a journalist. And, yet, the series has you by the eyeballs from the first frame itself wherein, as a show of hand for some quality writing, the creators spell out the 'saar' or base for the six hours' plus that will follow.The lead character, a Delhi Police beat-cop patiently explains how there are three worlds: Swarg lok (heaven, where Gods live), dharti lok (earth, for humans), and pataal lok (netherworld, where insects survive). His thana, in Outer Jamuna Park, poverty stricken outskirts of Delhi, decidedly belongs to pataal lok (as do, by association, most parts that have practically fallen off India's map). Basically, nobody cares who commits what crime in pataal lok. Lutyens' Delhi, nation's political capital, is swarg lok, yes; but what happens in heaven, stays in heaven — it's useless for a cop to operate in. It's the upper class colonies in Delhi — Vasant Vihar, Noida, etc — where the insects from pataal lok, on occasion, bite inhabitants of dharti lok, which then becomes kaand/scandal (Aarushi, Nithari, etc). Cops earn their stripes for cracking these kaands/cases. As a loaded, descriptive opener for a film/series, I don't know a better one since the 'bewakoof-ch**iye-dhaage' reference in Vishal Bhardwaj's Omkara (2006). When the intended target of an attack in this series meets his would-be assassins at the police station, he finds something primal in those eyes. The target, the married journalist, mentions this to a young colleague he meets at a bar later — right before he sets out to have sex with her. Nothing more primal than that either. Serious man Neeraj Kabi (Ship of Theseus, Talvar) plays the hot-shot journalist. The show, I'm told, is based on former Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal's book The Story Of My Assassins, which I didn't pick up from the store, mainly because the blurb on its cover by one of the lit-coterie writers, called it the "best Indian novel in English ever"! Don't know how much has been added, subtracted or altogether discarded from that source. Don't think the book was credited on screen at all. Beyond text, what can't be denied is the sheer cinematic quality of Paatal Lok, though — directed like a dream (Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy), shot like a nightmare (Avinash Arun, Sourabh Goswami) — just look at the production scale/design of this nine-episode, outdoor drama, hinged on location, location and location, and solid chase sequences thrown into each — whether in Chitrakoot, or Chandni Chowk! The show's been created by Sudip Sharma, whose writing credits include Navdeep Singh's NH10, Lal Kaptaan, Abhishek Chaubey's Udta Punjab, Sonchiriya — to give you a perfectly rugged, Middle India sense of where he's coming from, or where we're going. Watch the trailer of Pataal Lok here" Where we're also circling around a lot is a deeply intricate story, spread over multiple characters, leading to several, separate sub-plots. Inevitably an issue with such a complex structure is you'll like some of the stories and people in it, and really not care for some others. Happened to me all through. Suspect will happen to you too. But you carry on, also because the performances keep you up — whether it's the fresh, novice cop (Ishwak Singh), or the young journalist (Niharika Dutt), besides a full gang of moronic minions and conniving lords, hovering like moths on screen. Towering above all, of course, is the leading man Jaideep Ahlawat as the foul-mouthed cop Hathi Ram Chowdhry — rock-hard, bohot hard — lugging this heavy show on his broad shoulders as his character soldiers on through hell and back. We've seen and admired Ahlawat in the past (Raazi, Raees, Lust Stories). But this is, in many ways, a debut of sorts — like it was for Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Gangs Of Wasseypur (2012). Throughout he looks so feisty yet so completely weighed down. Does the series itself weigh down the viewer? Sure as hell. It's titled Nether World, for God's sake. It shines a torchlight on a dark India we often read about — you can see traces of so many reported cases, from Mathura 'mob-lynching', Ahmedabad 'fake-encounter', Jamia 'terror cell'... It exposes the gutter, and leaves you feeling gutted too. Because it humanises it all, while we prefer to read about the characters in this series as either statistics, or faceless groups — rag-pickers, gunmen, youth, etc. Perhaps essential to visually dissect human insects on a microscope sometimes. Paatal Lok does just that; beware. Catch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here. Also, download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps. Mid-Day is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@middayinfomedialtd) and stay updated with the latest news

"Paatal Lok" is a gripping and intense Indian crime thriller series that captivated me from start to finish. The show's dark and gritty atmosphere, coupled with its complex characters and intriguing storyline, kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. The series delves into the depths of the criminal underworld and explores themes of corruption, power, and social inequality. The writing is masterful, with a well-crafted plot that unfolds gradually, revealing surprising connections and layers of complexity. The character development is exceptional, with each individual having their own struggles and motivations, making them feel authentic and relatable. The performances in "Paatal Lok" are outstanding. The cast delivers stellar acting, bringing their characters to life with nuance and depth. Jaideep Ahlawat's portrayal of the lead character, Hathiram Chaudhary, is particularly noteworthy. His performance is nuanced and captivating, showcasing the character's flaws and vulnerabilities. Visually, the series is stunning, with its atmospheric cinematography and gritty production design. The settings reflect the stark realities of the story, creating a palpable sense of tension and unease. The pacing is well-balanced, allowing for moments of suspense and reflection. Overall, "Paatal Lok" is a must-watch for fans of crime dramas and those interested in thought-provoking storytelling. Its blend of compelling characters, gripping narrative, and social commentary make it a standout series that leaves a lasting impact.

Patal lok is a violent and suspence TV series, the story keep you interested till end. You will get some out of box performance of Hathoda Tyagi and Jaideep Ahlawat, which can blow your mind. Specially Jaideep Ahlawat performance, he is the backbone of this series and will make u awe with his natural acting. Other gem with a relatively lesser screen presence but more impact is #Abhishek #Banerjee he has Hathoda is just fire. Few scenes and things may not make any sense. This TV series have some cool haryanvi accent dialogues which add a bit more to watch.