The year of non-fiction

What have OTT platforms made possible for regular Indian audiences since 2016 which wasnrsquot the case in the decades before Bingewatching shows Not quiteDesis were spending about four hours daily on TVmdashwatching serials what else that ran for hundredsthousands of episodes anyway Therersquos the nearunlimited access to film libraries surely But movies first belong to theatres mdash always have always willWhat the OTTs heralded and that should only grow with time is a bunch of genres that network TV didnrsquot think was lsquomainstreamrsquo enough Freetoaccess Internet wouldrsquove rendered it amateur altogether And itrsquos stuff that cinemas had no space forZakir KhanNamely documentary films series standup comedy specials and just a lot of content in the reality space What was the biggest entertainment news of the yearDocs winning big abroadThink about it mdash we go on and on about the Oscars right Right now end Dec rsquo22 everyonersquos talking about RRRrsquos chances at an Oscar nom Well an Indian featurelength film actually got nominated for the Oscars in rsquo22 directed by Rintu Thomas Sushmit Ghosh and you canrsquot recall its title Writing with FireLikewise the top prize at Cannes rsquo22 went to an Indian film mdash Shaunak Senrsquos All That Breathes Soon after yet another Indian film Vinay Shuklarsquos While We Watched picked up the big gong at the Toronto International Film FestivalThese are heavyweight fests where desi movies rarely if ever make it to the competition section let alone win a return gift Further the first batch of Oscars rsquo23 shortlists had two Indian films Kartiki Gonsalvesrsquos The Elephant Whisperers on Netflix besides All That Breathes againWhatrsquos common to all these movies They are all documentaries that wersquore waiting to watch as they hit screens in the new year Because OTTs have added a commercially viable dimension to their unprecedented critical acclaimBandon Mein Tha DumEmo for standupAre standup comedies as we know them primarily a western genre Undoubtedly Sure wersquove had Hindi humourists Johnny Levers and Raju Shrivastavs holding mics before But their lsquopeshkashrsquo with much mimicry was not the same observationalpoliticalpersonal comedy that standups thrive onSo much so that when Kapil Sharma debuted with his Netflix special Irsquom Not Done Yet in rsquo22 his core network TV fans wouldrsquove wondered what the hell was that It was closer in spirit to say Vir Dasrsquos nth Netflix special Landing mdash in English delivered in NYC of courseWhat we were watching is basically TED Talk meets comic storytelling full of emotions plus nostalgia where the raconteurrsquos lsquomess is the messagersquo mdash what standups have often veered towards ever since Hannah Gadsbyrsquos Nanette 2018 or Hasan Minhajrsquos Homecoming King 2017 in particularPretty sure nobody does emo better than desis Who further mainstreamed the Indian standup scene in rsquo22 in black kurta and blacker comedy about life ageing adulting and death drawing tears from his audience along with the laughs mdash killing it with a Hindi standup special Zakir Khan on Amazon Prime Video Tathastu ZabardastIndian Predator Murder In A Courtroom PicsInstagramTrue crimes take a tollAs multiseason binges go Netflix seems most invested in the Indian Predator franchise tracking down recapturing deranged serialkillers rapists and other heinous repeat offenders of the Indian streetThere were four such miniseries in rsquo22 To rank them in order of murkiness merit design and direction Irsquod probably go with Murder In A Courtroom gt The Butcher Of Delhi gt The Diary Of A Serial Killer gt Beast Of Bangalore Watch them in that order if you like and havenrsquotThe last one dropped yearend and was eyeopening for how often a serial rapistkiller Umesh Reddy can escape after getting arrested by the police frickinrsquo five times The rest showed us how easy it is to kill dump disappear and reappear in a crowd of desis no matter where you are village city or smalltownThe quality of these shows neednrsquot compare with the best in the genre globally But hell the lsquoconnectrsquo is impossible to replicate The fear is real This is going on right where you are just the way House of Horrors haunted us in rsquo21 ldquoLalit ko pareshan mat karordquoStills of Lock UppCelebs locked upOkay I neednrsquot hack into dashboard of desi OTTs to know that all of you actually sit and watch for hours stuff like Indian Matchmaking or Moving in with Malaika or Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wiveshellip Whatrsquore they about but audiences viewing a ldquocelebrityrdquo in a lockedup situation mdash given the cameras are on as they go about their day or date in the case of Sima Auntyrsquos seriesPublic figures actually in a lockup or under threat for reasons nobody can figure is progressively becoming a possibility if not a reality for some in IndiaHow about a show that locks them up for the cameras in a jail with the worst foodlooinmates Thatrsquos what everybody watched on the new reality drama Lock Upp mdash the first such exclusively for an OTT platform MXPlayer ALTBalaji The idea is similar to Bigg Boss yes which in turn is the Big Brother global franchise isnrsquot it In fact all Indian reality shows are ideas licensed from abroadLock Upp was a rare desi original with Kangana Ranaut as the toxic TV host Standup comedian Munawar Faruqui won the showrsquos first season in rsquo22 Faruqui had earlier spent a couple of weeks in an actual jail for a joke he couldrsquove thought of but didnrsquot deliver mdash no seriously The irony was lost on no oneAlso ReadYearender 2022 From The Kashmir Files to Drishyam 2 6 films that witnessed success at the box officeSports the ultimate storyBefore director Kabir Khan got into YashrajBollywood he used to be a documentary filmmaker often reporting from warzones Only that Khan tells me his films produced with so much pain would get viewed at best by the same 500 nodding lsquoagreeablesrsquo at Delhirsquos India International Centre in Delhi and other such venues Itrsquos the reason he was adamant on going lsquomainstreamrsquo as a filmmakerKhan made the Ranveer Singh starrer 83 It released in Xmas rsquo21 but effectively bombed in rsquo22 with the film industry wondering if audiences had abandoned theatres postpandemic Some felt the movie on Indiarsquos unlikely victorious 1983 cricket World Cup campaign was too much of a documentary I didnrsquot think so But what if it wasItrsquod look more like the rsquo22 doc miniseries Bandon Mein Tha Dum on Voot Select mdash on the 2021 IndiaAustralia Test series that India started off with scoring 36 runs in the first Test and eventually won the series defeating Australia at Gabba where the hosts hadnrsquot lost in 32 yearsTop Bollywood director Neeraj Pandey A Wednesday Special 26 MS Dhoni directed the sports doc The best such series in rsquo21 Break Point Zee5 on Leander Paes Mahesh Bhupathi was likewise directed by Bollywoodrsquos Nitesh Tiwary Dangal Chhichhore Ashiwini Iyer Tiwary Panga Bareilly Ki BarfiKhan might wanna reconsider mdash docs seeming quite mainstream at the moment maybe more so in the future