Netflix’s Indian shows reveal Bollywood’s severe lack of boldness and quality
I am a Netflix regular. However, I haven’t been this much excited about its content as I am now. In the past few weeks, we have seen an influx of Indian shows on the platform. Namely: “Sacred Games” and “Ghoul.” Both were based on Indian contexts and involved fabulous performances from stalwarts like Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte. In this article, I want to stress on what these shows represent in terms of a larger backdrop of Indian cinema and especially Bollywood.
Regardless of the fact whether one liked the plot, acting and other film technicalities, both of the above series displayed an abundance of boldness.
In the case of “Sacred Games,” I was thrilled to see Anurag Kashyap in his element. He was free, brash and real with his direction of Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s character. This time, on Netflix, Kashyap did not have to tone himself down or get into a dispute with the Central Board of Film Certification over censorship issues. For those who like their movies and TV series uncensored and unfiltered, Sacred Games was a breath of fresh air and a joy to watch.
“Ghoul,” which initially came across as just a supernatural horror series, took the game to another level. The “supernatural horror” aspects were secondary. What was striking was the narrative it was based on. Current socio-political issues like anti-Muslim sentiment, beef ban, hyper-nationalism, coining and usage of the term “anti-national” and how these are being normalised under the façade of patriotism and a so-called love of motherland India, were the primary operators on the background while the horror scenes were threads with which the whole story was tied. I just finished seeing the series some days back. In hindsight when I introspected what I saw, what scared me more were not the horror scenes, but a gradual realisation that the social milieu which was shown can very well be a possibility in the future, given the current scheme of things.
Netflix’s current crop of Indian shows (including “Lust Stories”), is a slap on the face of contemporary Bollywood. These shows challenged the status quo. If not challenged, then certainly asked some tough questions, something which Bollywood has ceased to do since quite some time now apart from some rare occasions. Where on one side, Bollywood-which is plagued with nepotism and hero-worship-is still running age-old storylines of rosy romances taking the audience to a Disneyland of happy endings; on Netflix, we see a burqa-clad Radhika Apte giving up her father to the defence forces for mental rehabilitation for his “anti-national” activities.
These Indian shows on Netflix also display how much Bollywood has fallen down the pecking order in terms of producing quality, thought-provoking content. Forget about challenging or asking questions, Bollywood seems to have found a comfort zone where from where they are unwilling to budge. While some directors within the Bollywood fraternity tried to deviate from the normal, they were shut down via censorship by the Central Board of Film Certification.
Netflix, through these recent Indian shows, is not only redefining Indian cinema but it might very well provide a platform for Indian directors who have been a victim of nepotism and censorship, to finally showcase their work.
