Forest Frontier:
The new web series, Poacher (Amazon Prime Video), directed by Richie Mehta (Delhi Crime), shows once again that the country would have been hollowed out by apathy and corruption, were it not for the unflinching honesty of a handful of a few fearless people.
The eight-part series starts with the shooting of an elephant, and each episode shows the decomposition of the carcass, till, in the last episode, there’s just a skeleton. It leads to one of the most powerful and moving images seen at the end of an absolutely gripping series. It is based on the true story that took place in 2015, of forest officials, cops, wildlife conservationists hunting and shutting down a ring of ruthless poachers, smugglers, with a huge hall of contraband ivory.
Nobody would have cared much for the depleting numbers of elephants in a Kerala forest if a conscience-stricken man had not gone to the media and wildlife authorities exposing the extent of the killing and ivory smuggling. A corrupt cop allows the local hunter to escape, but it also brings down higher ups, who give Neel Banerjee (Dibyendu Bhattacharya) carte blanche to flush out the gang, and he brings on board Mala Jogi (Nimisha Sajayan) who is languishing in a bird sanctuary. Mala, in turn, seeks the help of a Delhi-based data analyst Alan Joseph (Roshan Mathew), and a suspended cop Babu Vijay (Ankith Madhav), who used to be her boyfriend.
When they pick up Morris Finn (Amal Rajdev), one of the links in the chain, they discover that the smuggling ring involves many powerful people and as one of the kingpins, Poonam Verma (Sapna Sand), an art gallery owner in Delhi, with high profile clients. There is an active connivance of law enforcement officials at every level, because the money involved makes the ivory more valuable than gold.
Using a talented cast, mostly from Kerala, where a large part of the show is shot on breathtakingly beautiful locations, with the camera (DOP-Johan Heurlin Aidt) pausing to give the viewer a glimpse of the rich flora and fauna that is endangered because of human greed and cruelty. Most people, who would not kill living beings themselves, do not respond with adequate alarm to news of hunting and poaching because it’s only animals. But there is a delicate balance of nature that is disturbed when species are wiped out, the true impact of which would be felt decades later, probably much too late to undo the damage. As a character says, pointing fingers at a sensation-chasing media, that they made a hero out of a poacher, like Veerappan.
Neel, Mala and Alan go much beyond the call of duty to unravel the complicated web of hunters, buyers, suppliers and customers, all equally to blame for the brutal killing of elephants. Poachers has action scenes, gentle pauses for shots like elephants crossing the road, and during one chase sequence, Mala halts the speeding vehicle to let a line of ducks to pass. Interspersed with their crusade are stories of their personal lives, which are admittedly not too interesting, but serve to humanize these courageous characters who would otherwise be turned into Bollywood-style superheroes.
Viewers outside of Kerala will discover the wonderful actress that is Nimisha Sajayan. Roshan Mathew, Dibyendu Bhattacharya and others like Kani Kusruti as a cop punished for her zeal, and fit their parts and help make Poacher (co-produced by Alia Bhatt) one of the best shows likely to come out this year.
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in)
