Inside The Chaos And Control Of ‘Paatal Lok'

The cast and crew of the breakout series discuss philosophy, power play and why love is all we need

- Jessica Xalxo

NEW DELHI: Inspector Hathi Ram Chaudhary (Jaideep Ahlawat) patrols the Capital’s roads by night with rookie Imran Ansari (Ishwak Singh). Asphalt blurs as the siren’s red, blue and white blaze bounces off the tarp of the PCR van, immersing the nondescript vehicle and its khaki-clad officers in an otherworldly light. As Chaudhary explains, their plane is not entirely grounded, forming a bridge between worlds; three to be precise.

Scripture splits the universe into ascending realms. The bottom rung is called paatal lok (hell) where the insects or the lower class fester, the middle tier comprises the dharti lok (earth) where the humans of the middle class toil and the supreme level is ordained the swarg lok (heaven) where the gods or the upper-class rule over the three kingdoms.

“Waise toh yeh shastron mein likha hua hai par maine WhatsApp pe padha tha (You’ll find these words in scriptures but I read these lines on WhatsApp,)” Chaudhary closes with a wry smile.

It’s this tongue-in-cheek anecdote by which Sudip Sharma, creator and writer of Prime Video’s crime thriller Paatal Lok, wants to introduce viewers to the world of the breakout series. “There’s been this sudden explosion of mythology after social media and WhatsApp came into being. While history connects us to our real past, mythology connects us to what we believe was our past; anything is being shoved down our throats in the name of mythology,” he says.

Employing myth in the series was the makers’ way of saying that over millennia, nothing has truly changed. That ancient, oppressive structures of power still dictate how the world works and by extension, how we view those who operate within its folds.