The last episode of mini series called Tan Man Neel o Neel aired on February 15 on Pakistan’s Hum TV. One could almost hear the loud silence it pushed the viewers into, freezing them in a shock. It was a while before they shook themselves out of their fright to post messages of appreciation and heaviness on Pakistani social media channels.
Friends and fellow journalists frantically shared with me, links to the series that deals with issues of sexual abuse and mob violence.
Late one night, I sat down with a glass of chilled orange juice, deciding to give the first episode a try. Before I knew it, I had reached the sixth. Tiny droplets of condensation were flowing down the untouched juice bottle.
In eleven 40-minute episodes, the series took me through the cramped streets of Lahore (where large parts of it is shot, though the series doesn’t mention the city the story is set in) and into the lives of three young people I wished were my friends.
In fact, I was sure I had met the lead, Rabi or Rabia Erum somewhere in the back alleys of Kanpur or Jhansi. A wannabe YouTuber, who is vivacious, ambitious, wise and sincere. A series of events lead her to fall in love with a dancer named Sonu Danger.
I am sure I have also met a Sonu on some street of Jalandhar or Hyderabad. Sonu is a soft spoken man, with a calming presence. Men like Sonu – who do not exude stereotypical fierce aspects of masculinity – are rarely noticed. Especially because Sonu is not uncomfortable playing second fiddle to Rabi.
The third character in focus is Sonu’s friend, Numaan whose nickname is Moon. Life constantly teaches this courageous man to stay in line. I have also met a Moon somewhere in Aligarh or Ahmedabad, who is desperately trying to find justice in an extremely unjust world.
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The three walk on a path filled with thorns of deceit, corruption and hatred, but manage to identify small patches of aspirations, dreams and hope. Competing politicians and police use Moon’s intention to lodge a case of sexual violence to their benefit. Sonu, by his own admission, is just a dancer who is in love with the art. But, his art almost never gets the recognition it deserves. Rabi is quintessential Gen Z who has created a character for her YouTube channel, is excited by comments received on her video and harbours dreams of earning in dollars through her YouTube channel.
In the last episode, the three young people start an event management company. Their first event is an engagement ceremony, where they are contracted to provide the catering, dance and videography. A night before their first event, Rabi rests her head slightly on Sonu’s shoulder and discusses her dreams of taking up bigger contracts, while sitting on the roof of a house full of colourful neon lights.
Until then, the characters and the audience are living in fiction. But, the last ten minutes of the episode yanks us into reality when a mob is wilfully fed lies through a fiery speech. Sonu, they are told, had desecrated a “holy place”. It doesn’t matter that dancing is not desecration or that he had not danced in a “holy place”. But, the mob doesn’t care. Religion is a mass sentiment. The mob doesn’t think, it only acts. Over a searing song, sung to the beats of ankle bells, the three friends are lynched to their deaths. Their innocent dreams ending with them.
Apne ghar ko aag lagake taape apne haath.
Apni apni gardan hai, apna apna phanda.
(Set your house on fire to warm your hands.
Everyone has his own neck and his own noose.)
Anyone who has seen the Marathi film Sairat, will relate this haunting song with the equally haunting silence at the end of the movie when the lead characters are killed for marrying outside their caste. The feeling of despair audiences are left with is the same.
If anyone thought that the makers were hinting at recent instances of mob violence in Pakistan, these scenes leave no doubt. The lynching sequence in the climax is interspersed with photos of the real life victims of such senseless violence.
Not only did I feel like I had met Rabi, Sonu and Moon, I felt like I had read about their deaths in newspapers. Not Pakistani newspapers, but Indian ones. Mob violence is as much India’s reality. The country witnessed 13 incidents of mob lynching in the year 2024 and 21 the year before, according to the Mumbai-based NGO Centre for Study of Society and Secularism.
The fact that the characters were like people I had met or befriended, ensured their deaths brought the absurdity of violence in sharp focus.
Once the melancholy subsided, I was overcome with a deep sense of discomfort at the state of films and series created in Hindi. It was hard to not compare. The Hindi industry is certainly bigger, richer and has greater influence, but still.
The fact the Pakistani show is free and available on YouTube, should be a wake up call for OTT platforms that commission multi-million dollar series with weak stories and almost zero impact. After Tan Man Neel o Neel aired, many critics and observers were speaking out against the strict blasphemy law in the country.
As someone who has a ringside view of the Hindi film industry (HOW?), I have heard directors, producers and writers talk about self censorship ad nauseam. Film critic and author Anna M.M. Vetticad recently published an extensively reported story which concluded, “self-censorship and extra-judicial pressure to conform to unwritten restrictions is now routine across India, as writers, directors, producers and streaming platforms fall into line.”
The founder of Hum TV Network, Sultana Siddiqui, is the producer of Tan Man Neel o Neel, which is the third of the trilogy she has produced on mob violence. Its director, Saife Hasan, shared on a Pakistani TV show that the concept was Siddiqui’s, she was closely involved in the scripting process and even gave creative inputs.
Producers, with their deeper pockets and influence, standing firm give wings to the creative minds on a project. Writers garner strength to write fearlessly, directors experiment and actors go that extra mile.
Conversely, when there is self censorship at the highest levels for fear of being rapped on the knuckles, it trickles down.
In the past five years, I have lived in Mumbai neighbourhoods surrounded by production houses, cafes overflowing with writers and streets full of directors. I have heard engaging stories challenging Hindu supremacy or Islamic orthodoxy, among others. Most of them live and die in some cosy folder on the writer’s computer. Issues like mob violence are all around us. The question is, do the leaders of the Hindi industry want to come face to face with those realities?
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There are very few exceptions. In the past few years, some production houses approached me to look over their scripts. They wanted it to look “real,” given my experience of having reported from over 100 districts in different corners of the country. I have given feedback on stories that touched upon issues of religious conversion, the Maoist conflict and child sex trafficking. Some of these scripts lack a sense of authenticity. They seem superfluous in their research and do not have a deeper understanding of the issues. Those that are effective in their storytelling are few and far between, those might not have sufficient financial backing.
It is clear that for expensive media like cinema or television, what really matters is courage of those who helm the projects. In 2024, Siddiqui produced three limited episode series on mob violence. The first two in her trilogy – Nadaan and Mann Jogi – are also beautiful in their storytelling. The characters in those are as loveable and relatable as in Tan Man Neel o Neel. Danger lurks on lead characters in the other series as well, but the lead characters are saved from the wrath and madness of the mob in the end.
But, Tan Man Neel o Neel was different. It is only when characters we have come to know and love – like Rabi, Sonu and Moon – meet a tragic end that the audience is forced to wake up from their slumber. That is perhaps what is pushing some people on social media to speak up against mob violence and the laws on blasphemy.
There is a message producers and industry leaders of the Hindi industry might want to take home. Effective storytelling is a matter of standing up and making tough scripting decisions. But, in the final analysis, also making them.
Raksha Kumar is a journalist covering human rights issues.
