By Vishnu Mahesh Sharma
Major spoiler ahead….
The second season ends on a satisfactory note but before reaching there it touches some intriguing concepts placed around a very flawed and ill-executed central theme that never really lets the show emerge as a smashing pulpy thriller that it should have been.
There is a terrific sequence at the end of the season 2 of Asur in which Nikhil (Barun Sobti) confronts Naina (Anupriya Goenka) for her idea of justice. Naina has been an accomplice in Swati’s (the house helper who poisons Naina and Nikhil’s daughter, Riya, at the end of the season 1) murder by Dhananjay Rajput (Arshad Warsi). Nikhil discards the idea of vigilante justice and terms this act as murder. He despises Naina’s theory of Karma about Swathi. Cut to the last minutes of the season. Nikhil himself murders Shubh very coldly conveying the fact that it is one thing to talk and have an idea of true justice but it is, entirely, another thing to hold onto it. Will you leave everything to law and order when you know the real perpetrator? The culprit is two feet away from you. You know his crime. You know the trauma his crime inflected on you. You know the damage that crime caused to your relationship. You are empowered enough to eliminate him. With this empowerment, will you wait for the system to deliver the justice? Of course, the answer is No. You yourself deliver it instantly without giving a second thought to the ideal course of law and order.
These fascinating ideas are not limited to this one sequence. There is another wonderfully staged scene, which makes Nusrat (Ridhi Dogra) to confront her guilt idea of guilt. Very early in the season 2, we learn that Nusrat has done something illegal in the past to save her sister from a crime. In a family discussion, her sister, Shama, asks another such illegal favor from Nusrat. This time, Nusrat denies suggesting that she has not been able to come out of the guilt of her past doing hence she cannot, under any circumstances, indulge into another such act. Between right and love ones, her choice will always be right. Jump to the later portions of the season. Nusrat is forced to choose between an innocent girl and her criminal sister. She has a chance to make amend to his past wrongdoing. She knows what is right here. Still, she ends up choosing life for her sister and death for the innocent. Now she is left to confront, not guilt, but her idea of guilt. Not once, not twice but every single time, given a choice, she would always choose her family over everything else. The guilt had never been about her wrongdoing but was always about her inability to make righteousness so deeply rooted that nothing could shake it off.
If there are such sequences (and there are so many of them), then why the heading suggest that I did not really like the series as much as I would have loved to? The reason is the central theme- which is the weakest of all the ideas the series wants to explore. The Asur (literal Asur, figuratively there are many) of the show, firmly, believes that there is a devil within each of us. That devil is our true self and we hide that under the mask of truth, morality, values, law and justice. A cracker of a premise to explore. However, here what does Asur do to prove his twisted philosophy? He himself hides behind a mask of anonymity. This still would have worked because, at very fundamental level of narrative, the show follows the template of serial killer thrillers that gives the show the liberty of revealing the actual identity of the killer at the end. Alas, within this template it goes wrong big time with its central idea. The failures lies in Asur’s use of tools to propagate his cult.
His aides, his followers truly buys in his ideas. They do believe that devil liberates them; they have come to find that Adharma is their true self. They can go to any length to propagate this ideology. However, their method of propagation becomes the biggest hindrance for, us, viewers to buy in the same. Reason being they unleash their devilry by becoming one of us. They get gel well with the very society, which they think founded upon false values. They need to wear the same mask, which they want us to throw. Why to have so much contradiction and paradox. The matter gets worse as we have a reference of Joker who is also a psychopath and breathes more or less in the same vein as Asur. Then, Joker is so sure of his mind that he never hides behind any mask. In fact, the Batman has to put up a mask to fight chaos of Joker.If Asurs have such a profound philosophy and ability to make anyone as one of them, why take the route of gimmick and deceit. Let the world see what that true self that you want it to embrace. Why you yourself are hiding behind the image of boy next door to put through the devious messages of yours.It is almost a sin that the show never rises above the level of an average watch even though, it boasts of plethora of fantastic peripheral themes.
Case in point the character of an eleven-year-old boy, Anant, who has been projected as Kali to counter Kalki of Shubh. The scene in which Anant is chosen to negotiate with terrorists holding 50 people hostages is one of the best masala moments of Indian OTT space. His character is used to comment upon the ephemeral mindless mob mentality. One moment the entire country is ready to coronate him as Vishnu’s avatar and the next moment they want to cut his head off to save themselves.
A part of the central theme, also, comes across very well. The idea, “Truth and Lie are two sides of the same coin” for instance. Asur is hell bent on proving himself right and can go to any length and so is the CBI and team. They also take routes unforeseen and unwarranted to prove Shubh wrong. Moreover, doing so, both sides face causalities, as there are many collateral damages. In its aspiration to win over untruth, truth has to take some blows from its equally strong counterpart.
Still, what stops other parts of the central theme to come across as good is the abrupt template switch. The show establishes itself, near perfectly, as a racy and pulpy serial killer thriller. Someone is out there hunting people down. There is a pattern to these murders. There are cops, of opposing sensibilities, investigating it. There are red herrings. There are moments when the case becomes personal to investigators. All is formulaic, and I mean it in good sense. Then, comes the switch. The main plot is compromised for weak and paradoxical psychopathic philosophy. Suddenly, serial killings become sub text and twisted interpretation of mythology becomes the main text. If we see the first four episodes of the first season and the last two of the same season, we feel we are in different universe. Which, ideally, should not be that big a problem given that long form format is meant for such transformations. However, that has to be organic and gradual like, one in Breaking Bad. There, the progression towards darker side is measured and makers are so very well aware of the pace of the transformation. They address sub texts in episodic nature. One episode dealing with theme of ego, another with sense of under achievement, another with family tension etc. Nonetheless, all episodes put together never loses the coherence of narrative and set up of the world it is set in. Unfortunately, in case of Asur, the transformation of the world is so unsettling that the show never fully works either as serial killer thriller or as a gifted genius gone rowdy.
It is disheartening to observe that in better hand this material would have not known any limit. Had it been a tad bit more focused on the pulpy side, had it embraced the main text whole heartedly; it would have been such a formidable addition in OTT crime dramas. In my opinion, it is not a bad show, not at all. It just fails to realize the potential it had and is so very complacent with being an above average as the final product.