Paatal Lok has succeeded because of its content, says producer Anushka Sharma

Writer and creator Sudip Sharma and directors Avinash Arun Dhaware and Prosit Roy’s web-series Paatal Lok is receiving a lot of appreciation from both audiences and critics. Actress Anushka Sharma has reason to feel happy as she is the producer of the series, along with brother Karnesh Sharma, under their banner Clean Slate Filmz.

The actress has sent her first reaction to the response to Paatal Lok. “I’m overwhelmed with the love and adulation that audiences and critics have showered on our labour of love Paatal Lok," she said in an official statement. "The success of Paatal Lok is because of its content. In today’s day and age, superlative content is truly the most important yardstick and Karnesh and I, at Clean Slate Filmz, have always looked to give audiences something that they might have never seen before.”

Anushka added that she and Karnesh took notice of the changing content scenario in today’s times. “As a producer who is also an actor, I have only tried to entertain through innovative, highly engaging and clutter-breaking storytelling. Karnesh and I realized quite early that the content landscape was going to witness a massive change as we get more and more exposed to global content and I have tried to bring my learnings on this as an actor at play with Karnesh at Clean Slate Filmz,” she said.

Paatal Lok tells the story of a washed-up police inspector, Hathi Ram Chaudhary, played by Ahlawat, who gets his hands on a big case for the first time. He has to investigate why four criminals wanted to kill famous television journalist Sanjeev Mehra (Neeraj Kabi). The case sucks Chaudhary into the dark underbelly of urban and rural India.

Anushka Sharma is glad their instincts have been proved right. “It has been a huge learning experience for all of us at Clean Slate Filmz as we have taken baby steps into having razor-sharp focus on content curation,” she said. “The success of Paatal Lok is a massive validation of our beliefs, planning and curation strategies.”

She congratulated her entire team, especially web-series creator Sudip Sharma. She said he “has been the captain of the team, leading from the front. It is his brilliance that has captured the underbelly from a lens that’s unique, inspiring and discomforting.” 

Giving credit to the rest of the team, she added, “The directors of the show, Prosit Roy and Avinash Arun Dhaware, have starkly and breathtakingly brought alive the rawness of the script on screen and our exceptionally talented cast led by Jaideep Ahlawat, Neeraj Kabi, Abhishek Banerjee and the likes of Swastika Mukherjee, Niharika [Lyra Dutt], Jagjeet [Sandhu], Gul Panag, Ishwak [Singh], Asif Basra, among others, have poured their hearts out to translate the magic of the script to the screen.” 

Amazon Prime Video began streaming Paatal Lok from 15 May.