Paatal Lok


Paatal Lok
is an Indian neo-noir crime thriller television series on Amazon Prime Video, created by Sudip Sharma, who wrote the script along with Sagar Haveli, Hardik Mehta and Gunjit Chopra, and directed by Avinash Arun and Prosit Roy. The series was produced under the banner Clean Slate Filmz, and stars Jaideep Ahlawat, Gul Panag, Neeraj Kabi, Swastika Mukherjee, Ishwak Singh, Abhishek Banerjee, Niharika Lyra Dutt, and Richa Chaturvedi. Loosely based on Tarun Tejpal's 2010 novel The Story of My Assassins, the first season is about a disillusioned cop who lands the case of an assassination attempt gone wrong. Ahlawat, Singh, and Panag reprised their roles in the second season, and were joined by Tillotama Shome, Jahnu Barua, Nagesh Kukunoor and Prashant Tamang.
Sudip Sharma wrote the script in January 2017, and took more than a year for writing and pre-production. It is filmed across more than 110 real locations, with Paatal Lok being the first series to be shot at Chitrakoot. The cinematography for the series were handled by Avinash Arun and Saurabh Goswami, with editing done by Sanyukta Kaza. The background score was jointly composed by Naren Chandravarkar and Benedict Taylor.
The first season of Paatal Lok was premiered on Amazon Prime Video on 15 May 2020. The series received rave reviews from critics, praising the performances, storyline, writing and direction. The series were listed in the Top 10 Indian Web Series of 2020, by The Indian Express. Variety listed Paatal Lok as one of the best international TV shows of 2020. In May 2020, the makers announced that the second season is to be conceptualized. The second season was released on 17 January 2025.
Paatal Lok received eight nominations at the inaugural Filmfare OTT Awards, and won five awards – Best Actor, Best Series, Best Original Story, Best Screenplay and Best Direction.

Synopsis

The show revolves around Hathiram Chowdhary a cynical police officer who gets assigned to investigate a high-profile case. As he gets caught in the investigation, he gets dragged into the darker realms of the underworld. Paatal Lok is inspired by traditional concepts of Svarga, Dharti and Paatal, as metaphors for the different classes of India and the four estates, with Paatal being served as the prime phase of the storyline, which takes place in East Delhi, Delhi.

Cast and characters

Main

  • Jaideep Ahlawat as Inspector Hathiram Chaudhary
  • Gul Panag as Renu Chaudhary, Hathiram's wife
  • Ishwak Singh as Imran Ansari, Hathiram's junior

    Season one

  • Neeraj Kabi as Sanjeev Mehra, a reputable journalist and news anchor
  • Richa Chaturvedi as Media House receptionist
  • Swastika Mukherjee as Dolly Mehra, Sanjeev's wife
  • Niharika Lyra Dutt as Sara Matthews, a young journalist at Sanjeev's station who begins an affair with him
  • Abhishek Banerjee as Vishal "Hathoda" Tyagi, a notorious hitman and one of the four suspects arrested in the plot to murder Sanjeev Mehra
  • Jagjeet Sandhu as Tope Singh, one of the four suspects who ran away from his village after murdering people of other castes
  • Aasif Khan as Kabir M, one of the four suspects who hides his Muslim faith from the public
  • Mairembam Ronaldo Singh as Mary Lyngdoh, a transgender Nepali woman who is arrested along with the other three suspects
  • Vipin Sharma as DCP Bhagat, Hathiram's commanding officer
  • Anurag Arora as SHO Virk, Hathiram's senior officer who previously trained under him
  • Akash Khurana as Singh Saab, owner of Mehra's news station
  • Manish Choudhary as Vikram Kapoor, a former rival of Mehra's who becomes his business partner
  • Sandeep Mahajan as Delhi Intelligence officer Dahiya
  • Rajesh Sharma as Gwala Gujjar, a tycoon who runs an organized crime ring out of Chittrakoot
  • Sanjeeva Vats and Akshay Sharma as Donullia Gujjar, the shadowy, reclusive leader of Chittrakoot's organized crime ring and Gwala's brother; referred to as "Masterji" by his subordinates
  • Bodhisattva Sharma as Siddharth Chaudhary, Hathiram's son
  • Anup Jalota as Balkishan Bajpayee, a prominent politician known for making inroads with Chittrakoot's Dalit community
  • Anindita Bose as Chanda Mukherjee, Tope Singh's ex-girlfriend
  • Asif Basra as Jai Malik
  • V K Sharma as Old Sadhu
  • Tushar Dutt as Raju Bhaiyya
  • Azzy Bagria as Constable
  • Amit Raj as journalist
  • Manju Bahuguna as Hathoda Tyagi's mother
  • Ajay Raju as Chaiwala
  • Suvinder Vicky as Balbir Singh Sekhon

    Season two

  • Jahnu as Rangthong Ken
  • Nagesh Kukunoor as Kapil Reddy
  • Merenla Imsong as Rose Lizo
  • Tillotama Shome as SP Meghna Barua
  • Rokibul Hossain as Guddu
  • Prashant Tamang as Daniel Acho
  • Prateek Pachauri as Bittu Rahman
  • Nikhil Angrish as Jr. Bajoria
  • Bendang Walling as Issac
  • Azzy Bagria as Constable
  • LC Sekhose as Reuben Thom
  • Pali Sandhu as Satbir Brar
  • Shubro Bhattacharya as Praveen Sinha
  • Ariensa Longchar as Silas
  • Kaguirong Gonmei as Jonathan Thom
  • Shailesh Kumar as Raghu Paswan
  • Rozelle Mero as Asenla Thom
  • Theyie Keditsu as Grace Reddy
  • Viren Burman as Dhruv Malik
  • Lovita Morang as Rose's Mother
  • Kenny Basumatary as DIG Kohima

    Episodes

Season 1

Season 2

Production

Development

Paatal Lok is a police-based investigative thriller inspired by the traditional concepts of Svarga, Dharti and Paatal, as metaphors for the different classes of India and the four estates. Vijay Subramanian, head of content for Amazon Prime Video India, announced the series, along with six Indian originals, at the Television Critics Association's press tour held at Los Angeles, California in February 2019. Writer Sudip Sharma eventually explained about the concept of the series, in a virtual meet stating "There are primarily three classes, the upper, middle and lower which I personally associated to Swarg Lok, Dharti Lok and Paatal Lok, essentially derived from heaven, earth and the netherworld. The thought behind the concept of the show was to explore these three classes that exist in our society in the form of an investigative thriller. "We wanted to explore the three layers from the eyes of the investigator; i.e. the protagonist of the show, who represents the earth, the victim represents the heaven, and the suspects come from Paatal Lok." The series marked Sudip's fourth collaboration with Anushka Sharma's production house Clean Slate Filmz, and the latter's debut in digital platforms. Anushka stated in an interview with Press Trust of India, that "I acknowledge that I have made a career and a name for myself, which is relevant. I want to be able to use the position that I've created with my hard work as an actor and be able to back the stories, people and talent."

Writing

Sudip Sharma began writing Paatal Lok in the beginning of January 2017. For Sharma it was his maiden attempt at writing in long-form. The writing team also consisted of Hardik Mehta, Gunjit Chopra, Sagar Haveli who were also beginners in writing a series. Sharma wrote the first and last three episodes, while the remaining five were written by the other writers. All the writers did field research visiting places in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh in August 2017. The writing of the series took more than a year to complete, followed by research works and location scouting, and other process of pre-production. The show has two directors, Prosit Roy and Avinash Arun Dhaware, both directing different portions of the series. On hiring the directors, Sudip Sharma eventually stated "The minute both Prosit and Avinash were hired, I locked myself in a room with them for two weeks. Everyday, from 9 am to 7 pm, we would come in and go over the script again and again. In the process, we discussed how we would approach each scene, rewrote some parts, and changed character graphs. What that did was that by the end, the script was as much theirs as it was the writers."

Casting

Sudip eventually wrote the script with the protagonist Jaideep Ahlawat in mind, stating that "he had a phenomenal presence". He gave the script to Jaideep, who read two or three episodes of the script at night, and Jaideep eventually met Sudip and Karnesh Sharma, the following day to read the entire script. Jaideep eventually stated in an interview with The Indian Express, that "What I found interesting was that the first impression you get of all the characters is in black and white — the criminals, the media and the cops. There’s a clear segregation. But as the story progresses, all the characters merge into each other in such a way that you don’t realise what’s right and what’s wrong."
Jaideep did not take any projects, in the intermediate time, despite being approached for Khaali Peeli. While shooting for the series, he eventually increased his weight from 85 to 100 kilograms, as the show became physically demanding. Jaideep stated that the temperature ranged around 45-46 degrees, which eventually became difficult to shoot. Ishwak Singh, made his digital debut through the series, stated that "The shooting process in the digital world is quite different from that of the movie. While shooting for 'Paatal Lok', it was like shooting for three movies, as the makers had a bigger canvas to paint and a lot more to express and communicate." Gul Panag describes Renu Chaudhary, Hathiram's wife, as "the kind of middle-class wife whose aspirations are linked to her husbands".
Abhishek Banerjee also served as the casting director of the series, apart from playing the role of Hathoda Tyagi, the main antagonist in the series. Swastika Mukherjee, who played the role of Dolly Mehra, stated that he got a call from Banerjee, at October 2018, and sent her audition tape, which received a good feedback. She later came to Mumbai, for the audition process, which eventually worked well, although the actor joined the shoot, post completing her portions in Dil Bechara. Although her character was not a lengthy one, she stated "length is not a prerequisite for me, and it would be stupid to choose roles depending on its length or dialogues. What makes sense is to understand the quality and also what you can bring to the table."