Pataal Lok, Panchayat and a struggling film industry: 25 Years of Indian Cinema

What it did, apart from the lingering medical problems and virus mutations that doctors are still unpacking, is to cause profound changes in our viewing habits.

Before that fateful day in March 2020, oblivious to the terrible days that were coming, Hindi cinema’s first quarter did not exactly cover itself in glory.

ALSO READ: Between Delhi Crime and The Family Man, OTT comes of age; cinema has a new competitor: 25 Years of Indian Cinema

The year began with Om Raut’s Tanhaji, another of the films which had Bollywood glorifying our past, and vilifying Mughal invaders. Ajay Devgn plays the valiant Maratha leader who saves his people from the evil emperor Aurangzeb’s man on the ground, played by Saif Ali Khan, chewing the scenery as a slit-eyed villain, as well as, wait for it, crocodile meat.

Hitesh Kewaliya gave us a proper gay pair in Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhaan, played by Ayushmann Khurrana and Jitendra Kumar– their characters even share a proper kiss, gasp — trying to convince the former’s conservative family about his sexual orientation. Mostly good fun, it was received well and was a box office hit.

Meghna Gulzar’s Chapaak and Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad were films which are ‘women-oriented’, and they also made money. In the first, Deepika Padukone plays an acid-attack survivor pushing back at her aggressor, and in the second, Taapsee Pannu refuses to normalise being slapped by her husband. Important films, unapologetically feminist, unapologetically message-y, yet totally watchable.

The last film before Covid shut everything shut down was Homi Adjania’s Angrezi Medium, starring Irrfan as the supportive father of a young woman who wants to study in one of the world’s best colleges. Tragically, it also became the film that would be the cancer-ridden actor’s last: he died a month later, leaving Hindi cinema impoverished, and us bereft.

With movie halls shuttered for an unforeseen period, some films were forced to come out on OTT, but except for Anvita Dutt’s Bubbul, Honey Trehan’s Raat Akeli Hai, both debutant directors, and Alankrita Srivastava’s Dolly, Kitty Aur Woh Chamaktey Sitare which privileges female desire, nothing leapt off the screen. 

Here are my picks of the two of the best non-mainstream films of the year: Rohena Gera’s Sir, about an unusual relationship between a domestic worker and her employer (Tillotama Shome and Vivek Gomber), and Prateek Vats’ Eeb Alley Ooo, an even more unusual account of a money-catcher in Delhi, played by Shardul Bharadwaj. 

2020 was a terrific year for new shows. 

Directed by Avinash Arun and Prosit Roy, and written by Sudip Sharma and team, Pataal Lok blew us away with its gritty story-telling which connects the dots between a cop and a criminal: the face-off between Jaideep Ahlawat and Abhishek Banerjee is a keeper.

TVF’s Panchayat made its fictional village Phulera a landmark, causing urbanistas to flaunt their newly acquired rural-com vocabulary revolving around Sachiv Ji and co, featuring Jitendra Kumar, Raghubir Yadav, Neena Gupta and a bunch of others. 

Hansal Mehta’s Scam 92 gave us the Harshad Mehta story, with a stellar cast taking us back to a time when an ambitious young broker broke the Bombay stock market with his bull runs. Lead actor Pratik Gandhi has never looked back since.

Helmed by Ram Madhwani, Sushmita Sen’s comeback in and as Aarya, homemaker-turned-steely drug runner, never losing sight of her motherly duties even in the most dangerous situations, was thoroughly enjoyable. 

ALSO READ: The Family Man 3 review: Manoj Bajpayee-Jaideep Ahlawat show is frantic yet obvious

Anand Tiwari’s Bandish Bandits gave us a clash between tradition and modernity, classical music ustaads and warring rockstars, and all-round superb music: a show — featuring Naseeruddin Shah, Sheeba Chadda, Ritwik Bhowmik, Shreya Chaudhary, Rajesh Tailang, Atul Kulkarni among others — about ‘gharanas’ and its many stakeholders, up against the age old question of what ‘moving with the times’ could mean, it kept us engaged. 

A special mention for Neeraj Pandey’s spy-saga Special Ops, top-lined by Kay Kay Menon, and of course, the second season of Mirzapur, which continues to track its characters, whose home-grown names Guddu, Golu, Munna, Sweety, Bablu deserve a separate fan base.