Thank You Inspector Hathiram Chaudhary

There are hardly any good Indian movies but there are some hidden gems in the form of Hindi series.

A colleague told me about the Paatal Lok series a couple of years ago and I was hooked. 

Jaideep Ahlawat as Inspector Hathiram Chaudhary is just brilliant. In the middle crappy actors, Jaideep is an actor who is showered with talent probably from up above. 

Jaideep Ahlawat is the Hindi version of what Vijay Sethipathi is to Tamil cinema. 

I haven't been to India for almost 2 decades now but through Hathiram's eyes I am discovering not much has changed - poverty, power, and pusillanimous seems persistent. 

Thank you sir for making me lost in your art and making me think. 

Hathiram Chaudhary: A Hero For Our Times

He is an Indian, Rohtak-born. His precinct is Outer Jamuna Paar in Delhi. His currency of operation is that tough, drain-pipe humanity, which he has to preserve in an increasingly murky world.

High-profile police cases that turn out to be zero-sum games are his to negotiate. Slouch-shouldered and pot-bellied, he goes through a series of spirals only to come upon dead ends.

To do this night after night is to earn those bleary, exhausted eyes that are his signature.

Those eyes have wonderful bags under them that touch us deeply.

[---]

We keep persisting with Paatal Lok's hardbound cynicism because we know that even if wiped out and shattered, we can still come home to Hathiram Chaudhary. We are sure he would let us in with a shrug.

He has a political stance; he most certainly does. But he never uses it as a tool to patronize, instruct, or elevate himself to a higher moral plane.

Does this explain his broad appeal, why he's equally beloved by right-wingers and lefties?

Here's Hathiram's version of liberalism, as unrehearsed as they come.

In the first season, while standing up for a Muslim colleague, he doesn't position himself as the progressive one battling a bunch of bigots.

On the contrary, his actions suggest that steering clear of bigotry is something we all can aspire to.

In Season 2, there's a wonderful scene involving the revelation of a close friend's sexuality, where he rebukes his personal brand of Haryanvi machismo as he lends his support to the slightly embarrassed friend.

"I'm a country bumpkin with no knowledge of gay parades. But if it feels right to you, then that's all that matters," so says the bumpkin, not emphatically but searchingly, and with a faint note of some swear-word bubbling up in his throat.

His inclusive attitude is unique: It may not possess the jingle of a placard slogan, but it surely has the warmth of a hardboiled embrace.