Why You Can't Stop Loving Inspector Hathi Ram

Paatal Lok has received (richly deserved) praise and burgeoning cult appeal since it first landed on Indian streaming during the first frenetic months of the pandemic. Rich with symbolism, complex but competent plotting and compelling performances to boot, the second season of the series treads murky waters yet again, travelling between tense Delhi (Outer Jamna Paar) and simmering Nagaland. And it does so with the kind of success that few others in this part of the world do with their follow-up seasons.

One of my favourite scenes in the recently landed second season of the show is from towards the show’s end. Chasing a group of thugs in a school shut for Christmas holidays, Inspector Hathi Ram Chaudhary (Jaideep Ahlawat) leaps over a parapet and lands on a sloping roof with a thud. He immediately slips, slides and crashes on to the ground. He is on the ground, wincing animatedly in pain but not very audibly. His hands are on his glutes that hurt like hell from a previous accident.

But Paatal Lok wouldn’t be Paatal Lok without its iconic protagonist. Pockmarked, lumbering around in his trademark nervous gait, and always a seeker after the truth, Hathi Ram has entered the pantheon of eccentric and iconic heroes on Indian streaming. He's real, he's raw, he's relatable. Here's why we think viewers continue to warm up to him.

He’s played by Jaideep Ahlawat

Much like many other successful projects in the OTT space, Paatal Lok seems to benefit from great casting. Even though the script was written with Ahlawat in mind, as reported by Hindustan Times, the way the actor has left his unique stamp on it is quite something. The actor brings a kind of rare authenticity and fullness to the character—with his spot-on accent and jagged suburban edge. Ahlawat seems to have submitted himself to the physicality and behavioural attributes of a middle-aged man desperate to prove a point—with such devotion and dedication that Hathi Ram seems to have become an alter ego for him. He played a gangster from a similar milieu in An Action Hero (2022), but the earnest vulnerability and fragility of his character in Paatal Lok is unlike anything else.

He’s gentle—but boy, can he land a blow

One of the many things Paatal Lok does really well is humanising its Haryanvi character despite fully wringing out the sheer testosterone that this dairy state of farmers and athletes is known to symbolise in pop culture. It allows Hathi Ram to outwardly be a product of his upbringing and yet depicts him as sensitive and gentle in his own way (a softie, if you will). He exhibits that in his relationship with his younger colleague Imran, the way he makes up for his errors with his wife, or how he brings an orphaned child home. So, when he roughs up an uncooperative bodyguard or whacks a hostile witness during an interrogation, his gentleness stands out even more.

He doesn’t mince words

Hathi Ram’s version of masculinity doesn’t involve any sort of verbal manipulation or beating around the bush. He has the coarsest cuss words that he’s never shy of using. He tells colleagues and superiors off alike. He is abrasive with his family despite his deep unadmitted love for them. Not to say that this is ideal behaviour or what we should prescribe, but this honesty and bluntness that comes from a place of pureness is what makes him relatable.

He is intensely emotional

Despite his rough exterior, Hathi Ram is one of the best friends you can have and a complete family man, too. Remember the time he puts his son’s bully in his place in season one? Also, conveying grief is something Ahlawat does exceedingly well, regardless of the character he’s playing. We saw it in Three of Us (2022), where the actor utilised restraint to superb effect. In the second season of Paatal Lok, his bloodshot eyes as he stares vacantly into the distance after a tragedy, then goes off the rails, convey a deeply stirring internal churn.

He's a mess, but a lovable one

His station in life is often a rung below or more compromised by those around him, be it colleagues, associates or relatives. He is the quintessential underdog whose come-from-behind wins don't really come with heroism or swagger, despite Ahlawat possessing a wide and well-built frame. They come with a limp and a bruised face, careening in from some unlikely corner. On most occasions, Hathi Ram can be clumsy, and an absolute mess, but it never spills into thorough comicality. He's not especially intelligent—not in the way we often interpret it—but he has presence of mind and an undying hankering for answers.