Aar Ya Paar series review: Doesn’t aim high but still misses the mark

Since the success of Kantara and Pushpa: The Rise, a new kind of cinema is on the horizon: the blockbuster with a regional tinge. A story of Us vs Them. A story from the roots of the country. But, as Anurag Kashyap warned in a recent interview, mere emulation is a recipe for disaster. Still, Bollywood and now even web shows, can’t not hop onto the bandwagon. Everything is a formula, formula is everything.

Starring: Aditya Rawal, Ashish Vidyarthi, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Sumeet Vyas, Shilpa Shukla
Created by: Siddharth Sengupta
Streaming on: Disney+ Hotstar

Disney+ Hotstar’s new web show Aar Ya Paar seems like it was written by someone who got too excited after watching Avatar: The Way of Water and told a friend, “Let’s do something like this in India.” Don’t get me wrong, I am not dissing the makers’ choice of narrative. The story is urgent. The series tells the tale of a fictional Dhegohaati tribe, which remains isolated from the big, bad, modern world. They are at one with nature and content in their simple life. One of these Adivasis is our protagonist Sarju (Aditya Rawal), who proves his heroism not by saving the cat but by catching the fish. One night, an unimaginative tale is told by the tribe’s elder, of a greedy daanav, the destroyer of worlds, who was pushed beyond the river by the tribe’s rakshak. Ofcourse, there is a suggestion that this rakshak will be born again. Ofcourse, the Adivasis dance around a fire.

Parallely, the daanav Rueben Bhatta (Ashish Vidyarthi), is enjoying a show of Arabian belly dancing. He is the megalomaniac capitalist who has been made aware of his own mortality since he started peeing blood. Enter his final opportunity to leave a legacy: uranium has been discovered on Dhegohaati land and he will have it by hook or via hired crooks. Two other stories also cross the main plotline, one is of a special crime unit officer, played by Sumeet Vyas, who is on the hunt for Sarju because he assassinated some bigwigs and the other is of Puppala aka Langda Tyaagi (Dibyendu Bhattacharya), a recruiter of contract killers, who made Sarju do the killings. Oh, and Sarju also becomes an archer representing India internationally.

Aar Ya Paar is noble in its intentions. It advocates Adivasi rights, criticises man’s greed and remains on the side of nature. Just that these themes are wrapped in such an improbable plot, feels like an injustice to tribal stories. Things happen with filmy convenience. Sarju, wielding just a bow and arrow, shoots down goons armed with assault rifles and even bazookas. He gets a haircut and becomes incognito enough to get selected for a global sports event, where he is representing the country. The makers have also not made a genuine attempt at authenticity. The Adivasis wear brown sack-like costumes and have a lingo that sounds like an overemphasized Madhya Pradesh dialect. There is no uniqueness to their mannerisms which include cooing in order to communicate and plucking leaves to make ‘jadi-booti’. The story feels so myopic, it seems like its inspiration and research were limited to newspaper headlines. Moreover, whenever the plot feels dragging, the series resorts to unnecessarily gory violence. It also uses expletives oddly to make up for a lack of originality.

Except for Ashish Vidyarthi and Dibyendu Bhattacharya, the cast also doesn’t leave a mark. Aditya Rawal as Sarju has few dialogues but his expressions speak even less. He is either poker-faced or enraged. While it’s a bit early for me to take Sumeet Vyas seriously as a cop, Patralekhaa Paul as doctor Sanghamitra does a convincing job but is a victim of an aimlessly written character.

Aar Ya Paar contents itself with choosing a topic and doesn’t bother to sink its teeth into it. In a scene, Vidyarthi’s Bhatta, after poisoning the river from which the Degohaati draws water, tells a subordinate, “Let’s bring a twist in the story, let’s make it interesting.” That’s what the series feels like, a narrative with nothing more to say.