Beauties and the Beasts

Poacher  | Cast: Nimisha Sajayan, Roshan Mathew, Dibyendu Bhattacharya | Showrunner: Richie Mehta | Malayalam | Hindi web series Prime Video

ONE OF THE MOST powerful scenes in Poacher comes almost right at the end. A herd of elephants stops near the carcass of one of its own — killed for its ivory — bows down, and lovingly traces its skeleton with their trunks. Nimisha Sajayan, playing Forest Range Officer Mala Jogi, watches them in close-up, her fierce dark eyes shining with unshed tears. She has just finished winning a key battle against one of the country’s biggest ivory smugglers, smashing a long chain of shooters, drivers, dealers and buyers. It’s just the beginning but as her colleague Alan Joseph tells his son when he sees a python curled up in a ball on a trek through the forest: “All we have to do is leave nature alone. It will take care of itself and us too. If it is damaged, it recovers and rebuilds.” Indeed, one of the abiding themes of Richie Mehta’s series, based on true events, is the watchfulness of our world’s animal inhabitants. The frog leaps up as a human approaches, the porcupine throws out its quill, the bat keeps its eyes peeled. Poacher exposes a network of arms, drugs, and human trafficking, all emanating from Kerala. Sajayan, as the brave forest officer; Roshan Mathew as a snake expert; and Dibeyendu Bhattacharya as their wise but ailing boss, are the heart of the series. Mehta covers every angle—the shooters who are considered heroes because they bring home a livelihood, the local officials who are in collusion with local smugglers, and the forest officers who are on their own.

Why watch it? To see the beauty of the forests before they disappear

Through the Lens, Darkly

Showtime | Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Emraan Hashmi, Rajeev Khandelwal, Shriya Saran | Showrunners:  Mihir Desai | Hindi | Disney+Hotstar

“CINEMA IS OUR dharam, not our dhandha (Cinema is our religion, not our business),” says Naseeruddin Shah’s character Victor Khanna, hamming it to the hilt. His illegitimate son, Raghu Khanna, played by a perennially enraged Emraan Hashmi, thinks the opposite, believing that money is all that matters and that reviews can be bought. It’s the age-old battle between art and commerce, between the romance of the movies and the glitter of the box office. So no surprise that the series is called Showtime. Throw in another illegitimate offspring, this time a grandchild, who believes that art can be profitable and you have the makings of an epic battle. Or should at any rate. There is another half of a season to go (due to run in June) but currently all we’ve got in the garb of fiction is a pouting Mouni Roy, playing a woman desperate for a Kill Bill-ish role; a preening Rajeev Khandelwal, supposedly a mercurial superstar; his wife, a beautiful Shriya Saran struggling to make a comeback; and a newbie Mahima Makwana trying to be a boss lady. There are lots of fast cars, Alibaug homes, cleavage-popping dresses and dramatic dialogues. “Bollywood ki chamak main bahut andhera hai (Bollywood’s glitter hides swathes of darkness),” says a character. You get the drift.

Why watch it? Guessing the real-life person behind the character is always fun

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