Paatal Lok — A Reminder of Reality?

It’s been almost 2 days since I finished watching Paatal Lok and I am still trying to grasp everything I saw. It’s becoming almost impossible to watch/read anything without realising how complicated everything really is.

Paatal Lok is a story crafted beautifully with a few of the hundreds of things that exist around us — it talks about anxiety, religion, caste, poverty, gender, class, status and relationships to name a few. The show is of course fictional but somehow the characters are real. All of the characters exist right here amongst us. In fact, every character probably exists in multiple numbers. Their problems are real. The way they talk is real. The way they hate is real. The way they judge is real. The way they function is real. The way they exist, their surroundings, all of it is real. Maybe me and you are also just a little variation of some.

Talking about real life, I feel a little point that we miss every time something comes up is that there is no direct effect-cause relationship between everything that happens. There are billions of people, with millions of customs, traditions, rules and all of it together causes events to take place around us. You cannot find one cause for one occurrence. And so in the bigger picture, I guess what we all really would remember is the main story line but please do not forget to focus on the tiny parts that the show tries to make us realise. And also to not forget that these don’t happen in isolation.

For instance, in my usual course of life, I forget that caste based discrimination is still so rampant in this 72 year old independent country. I forget that what happened with Tope Singh happens to millions of people like him everyday. And maybe a lot of them also end up with a fate similar to his — being forced to leave his home, his family behind and not knowing if he would ever share a meal with them again. You could sense the helplessness in his family’s eyes.

The scene that follows where Balbir Singh says, “Dekh bibi, mere munde ne tere munde nu keha si, balbir singh teri maa chhod dega, balbir singh akele nai, ode 10 bande vi (roughly translated: Look sister, my son told your son, Balbir Singh will fuck your mother. Not just Balbir Singh but his ten men will too) and they continue to rape her, I swear I paused the show to just take it all in.

In another, Tyagi’s sports teacher tells Hathi Ram, “yahan ki bhasha mein yehi chalta hai, chhota kaam unglibaazi, bada kaam rape aur pura kaam rape aur murder.” Tyagi’s uncle is then negotiating with a guy the amount he is willing to pay to him to rape Tyagi’s three sisters. He asks for a discount since there are three sisters. ‘Discount’. His three sons (the girls’ cousins) then say that you don’t have to pay the guy, they can do it for free. And then the uncle says, that don’t you guy have any ‘sharam’ for offering to rape your sisters? Yeah, he said that for real.

Tyagi takes the revenge by killing those three cousins. And then, it was his turn to die. But things take turn and he ends up being a guy who would kill 45 people. All of this started for power over a piece of land. Tyagi, before all of this happened, was a simple school going boy. I don’t know what to feel about it.

There’s animosity, hunger for power, and the whole politics behind it. I cannot point out all of them but at so many moments while watching the show I wondered- am I or have I become too sensitive? Is this all normal? Is it all supposed to be normal? Somewhere I know I can choose to not directly get myself involved but there are so many who are just mere pawns who would never have this choice. And thus, this is to me a reminder of my privilege.

I know most of it won’t make a difference to most of our lives and it’s not important enough to think about it because we have our own issues to deal with, but doesn’t that make us a part of the problem too? I know it’s difficult for all of us to know about everything but is it okay to just look around our immediate circle of friends & family and dismiss existence of caste/gender/poverty all together?

But even if we do think about it, how much power do we have? The reaction that I mostly get is that we know there are problems, but it’s systematic and we cannot do much to change it even if we want to and that it’ll always be the same. Well, though it is not a concrete solution and not enough too, but here’s a little something that we all can actually do for a start:

Next time a girl raises her voice, don’t tell her #notallmen, next time a guy cries in front of you, don’t ask him to man up, don’t ask him to be a “mard”, next time someone talks about caste, don’t preach them about reservation, next time you see a transgender, don’t stare, don’t call them a chakka/hijra. I know we cannot change everyone’s problems, but the least we can do is to tell each other that we understand each other and are willing to listen & accept them. I also know that just having conversations about it isn’t enough too, but we really lack them at the moment. It could be a start. And you know, you don’t have to think you have to change the world, you just have to create a safe space for the people around you. Maybe things will follow from there.