Black Warrant

जेल एक ऐसी जगह है, जिससे हर कोई दूर ही रहना चाहेगा। यही वजह है कि जेल की भीतर की दुनिया के बारे में लोगों को कम ही जानकारी रहती है। हां, कई फिल्मों में जेल में होने वाली दबंगई, खराब खाना, बारिश में सोने की भी जगह ना मिलने जैसी चीजें जरूर देखने को मिली है, लेकिन विक्रमादित्य मोटवाने की नई वेब सीरीज ब्लैक वारंट जेल की दुनिया की स्याह सचाई को इतनी गहराई से दिखाती है कि आप इसमें खोते जाते हैं। एशिया की सबसे बड़ी तिहाड़ के जेलर सुनील कुमार गुप्ता और पत्रकार सुनेत्र चौधरी की इसी शीर्षक से लिखी किताब पर आधारित यह सीरीज जेल के भीतर होने वाले भ्रष्टाचार, जेलर-कैदी के रिश्तों, उनकी जिंदगी के साथ-साथ अस्सी के दशक में फांसी पर चढ़े चर्चित कैदियों की कहानी भी दिखाती है।

For a country so invested in rewriting history, it is shocking that there exist so few films and shows that tackle the contours of modern Indian history. Narratives set in pre-Independence India abound in Hindi cinema habituated to churning out period films by the dozen even though filmmakers are rarely burdened by facts or historical accuracy. Oftentimes, the genre, which spans historical biopics and narratives tracking several periods of the country’s freedom movement, becomes a means to an end — a way of reiterating religious extremism of the present rather than investigating the social conscience of a nation.

Jails are a world of their own making and ‘a law unto themselves’. Time and again, we have been reminded that prisons not only house hardened criminals, but are hubs of crime too. We have often seen the murky life inside prisons through the eyes of the prisoners. But a jailer’s unflinching point of view, listing systemic lapses, is not an everyday insight. Trust filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane to not only tread a new path each time, but also come out trumps. After wowing us with his period series ‘Jubilee’, now in association with Applause Entertainment and co-creator Satyanshu Singh, he turns his attention to Tihar jail. It’s certainly not a happy place, neither for the inmates, nor for those who try to run it. Since the source material is the book ‘Black Warrant: Confessions of a Tihar Jailer’, written by Sunetra Choudhury and the former superintendent of Tihar Jail Sunil Gupta, for most parts the intense narrative rings true.

A Vikramaditya Motwane film (or series) will always have one standout moment that stays on with the audience long after curtain call. In his debut film Udaan, it is the final moment of brothers Rohan and Arjun triumphantly walking hand-in-hand to their long-deserved freedom. In Trapped, it is Shaurya’s almost gleeful taandav-like dance when he burns down his mattress in a bid to attract attention in the apartment he finds himself locked in. In Lootera, it is the painfully poignant penultimate scene of Varun hanging an artificial leaf in the blinding blizzard so that Paakhi has reason to live, for at least a day more. In Jubilee, among many memorable moments, it is the unbridled sense of joy, reminiscent of Awaara, where Jay and Niloufer lose their umbrella in the pouring rain, but discover each other in the process. Each of these scenes represents freedom — or the journey towards it — in many ways. Each moment, as is the norm in a Motwane directorial, is simple on the surface but is loaded with meat and meaning.

“People say prison is a trashcan, but it’s really a circus,” DSP Tomar (Rahul Bhat) tells his new jailers. Black Warrant suggests that hangings are the circus’ circus. The sentenced are celebrities of the prison world. The visiting hangmen are celebrities for the Tihar staff. Inmates become nervy; reporters start asking questions. Everyone’s on edge—all except ASP Dahiya (Anurag Thakur), grinning broadly as he massages banana pulp onto a noose. The best Hindi streaming shows of the past few years are carefully built from the ground up, the longer runtimes allowing for more complex narratives but also challenge creators to populate and make believable specific universes—stock markets, village councils, counterfeit operations. I didn’t know hanging ropes were once smoothened with mashed banana. It’s not a vital piece of information; you’d miss it altogether if you weren’t paying attention for those three seconds in the second episode. But it’s sort of detail that gives me confidence, tells me the makers have burrowed deep inside their setting.

Co-created by Vikramaditya Motwane and Satyanshu Singh, the Netflix series Black Warrant is adapted from Sunil Gupta and Sunetra Choudhury’s non-fiction. Set in the 1980s, it follows a young man who signs up to be a jailer in Delhi’s Tihar Jail, as it is the only job available, and finds himself in the process. With compelling performances and an engrossing narrative, the prison drama unfolds just like a page-turner you can’t put down. At the end of the seven episodes, Black Warrant will leave you wanting more. Zahan Kapoor plays the straitlaced Sunil Gupta, who moulds himself and his beliefs according to the job. His co-workers, played by Paramvir Cheema and Anurag Thakur, seem better suited for the position. His boss, Rajesh Tomar (Rahul Bhat), and family don’t think he can last long. But he proves them all wrong as he keeps at it, despite facing the wrath of his superiors every other episode. Sunil must prove himself over and over again. With Sunil’s growth, audiences learn the stories of the prisoners, from the most notorious murderers to the petty criminals. Some of these are taken from the famous inmates who were housed at Tihar, some awaiting execution.

‘Black Warrant’ is a seven-part series based on a book of the same name about an insider’s account of his time at what has been dubbed ‘the biggest prison in Asia’, Tihar Jail. The volume is co-authored by Sunil Kumar Gupta, who joined Tihar in the early 80s, and journalist Sunetra Chowdhary; the show, directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, cherry picks some of the most sensational cases that unspooled during Gupta’s watch, as he grew from a wet-behind-the-ears rookie to an experienced jailer, without losing his humanity. Gupta, credited with starting Tihar’s first legal aid cell for poor, illiterate under-trials, is played by Zahan Kapoor. The actor, who debuted in Hansal Mehta’s 2022 terrorist drama ‘Faraz’, is given enough time here to grow into his role. Within a few minutes of the opening, his slight frame and smiling, soft ways — unlike his colleagues, he doesn’t cuss a mile a minute, nor does he use brute force on the inmates — are underlined more than a few times, and it’s quickly apparent why. His character, who doesn’t quite fit the job description — maintaining order in a rough-tough jail — is a familiar device used to impart chunks of information. And it is to Kapoor’s credit that he becomes more than just that device which is pressed into service through the series; he inhabits his character with conviction.

Jailers, convicts and undertrials populate Black Warrant, a seven-episode Netflix series created by Vikramaditya Motwane and Satyanshu Singh and produced under the banner of Applause Entertainment. Barring occasional detours beyond its prison setting, the show remains firmly focussed on an upright, unassuming jailer navigating a corrupt, insensitive system. It provides a sprawling overview of Delhi’s understaffed and overcrowded Tihar Jail of the 1980s from the perspective of a real-life prison superintendent. The insider’s take sets the series apart from average yarns about cops and crooks, crime and punishment. Black Warrant is no yarn. Rooted in reality, it portrays the intense struggles of a hero who is anything but a boilerplate man of action. He isn’t a cocky, hyper-masculine, strapping crusader out to flatten everything in his path.