 "EXCLUSIVE! Sudip Sharma on Jaideep Ahlawat starrer Pataal Lok Season 2: ‘Why NOT Nagaland? If we don’t tell our stories, who will?’ | Not Just Bollywood")
When Sudip Sharma was asked why he chose Nagaland as the central theme of Pataal Lok Season 2, his spontaneous answer was, “Why not Nagaland? It’s something we have not represented on the screen in the mainstream space and I come from Assam, I’ve lived there for 20 years and my extended family is still there.”
Edited excerpts from the interview:
Why did Pataal Lok Season 2 take so much time to come out on OTT?
Sudip: Digging up gold takes time. There were a lot of other things like COVID and production issues. A lot of it also had to do with the fact that we wanted to get it right and not just do the second season because the first season was so successful. Even if there was not a season two I would have been satisfied with it. But if we were doing the second season, no matter how much time it takes, it had to be worth it.
What was the pressure since the first season was so successful?
Sudip: There was no pressure because once you start thinking about what we got right, I think that’s a very dangerous territory for a filmmaker. Jaideep will be able to speak more about his experience as an actor. I deliberately wanted to stay away from all of that. While we were setting this up, there were a lot of questions about why we are doing this in Nagaland, there is no Hathoda Tyagi. I kept telling everybody if people would allow us to take all these chances, it’s with the second season of a successful show. Let’s throw everything out of the window and take all the risks we possibly wanted to take.
Why Nagaland, was it because of the current situation?
Why not Nagaland? It’s something we have not represented on the screen in the mainstream space and I come from Assam, I’ve lived there for 20 years and my extended family is still there. If we don’t tell our stories, who will? If I was pitching the story of Nagaland in the first season, maybe they would not allow it because it would have looked too niche. But after the success of the first season, they could see the empathy in our gaze, there was a genuine honesty to the work we were doing.
The political situation of the state is very different. The north east problem is very much a north east problem and not an individual state problem.
That would be the recipe for a disaster because we have seen the north east as one big block. All those states are so different from each other. Nagaland is the only Baptist state in the country. Meghalaya is Catholic. Arunachal Pradesh is very different. Mizoram is largely Hindu with a lot of Bengalis. There is something very unique about Nagaland. The tribal system there is very strong. Those are kind of your first markers of identity more than your family.
And they have their own languages. And they had to create their own language, Nagamese which is a mix of Hindi, Bengali, and Assamese. This was because the tribe could communicate between each other. It is a very, very unique land and a very, very unique culture.
WATCH the trailer of Pataal Lok Season 2 here:
Lachmi Deb Roy is the entertainment editor of Firtspost, Network18. She reviews films and series with a gender lens. Her interviews are called 'Not Just Bollywood' because she takes huge interest in world cinema. OTT over theatrical releases is her preference unless and until its a King Khan film. She takes interest in fashion, food and art reviews too.