Synopsis: The second season of AVRODH, which is now streaming on Sony Liv is an engrossing tale and it does live up to its potential without going overboard in character portrayals.
Corridors of powers (including leadership and the administration) and sentinels, who guard our borders, are getting traction as now the world comes to realize what catalytic role they play in maintaining the fabric of the nation overriding the insurmountable problems with their grit, perseverance and commitment.
Loosely inspired by the character of Major Pradeep Bhattachrya, the role enacted by Abir Chatterjee, AVRODH SEASON-2 has enough twists and turns in the plot to engage the viewer until the end. The web of terrorism, which has now become a global enterprise and has become nuanced with ideological support through the intellectuals from the elite world of academia, has been brought out in succinct detail and Sanjay Suri as the antagonist has a role of a lifetime to show his acting prowess. He has come out with excellence.
The platform of OTT does give many opportunities to the director to traverse a landscape and show the kaleidoscope that India is through the eyes of a camera. Therefore, the opening episode starts from Guwahati and meandering through Alang, Bhavnagar, and Rajasthan and then to Nepal serves as the binding element for the serial. One might have read about the Alang ship-breaking yard as one of the biggest ship breaking yards in India, but perhaps it is for the first time that it has a cinematic representation. Choosing Alang as one of the locations, makers of AVRODH SEASON 2 have underlined that our maritime borders are still porous and continue to be the entry point for anti-national activities.
The role of Coast Guards in undertaking the entry level checking with due diligence or rather the lack of it has been underlined in detail. Abir Chatterjee enacting the role of Major Arya has performed the role well but there are instances where his diction falters and in the editing, it needs to be focused upon and factored in. What has also been missed out in the character portrayal of the role of Pradeep Bhattacharya is the fact that he is the first Indian Revenue Services Officer who through the territorial army went for live action in the field against the terrorists and was awarded the Shaurya Chakra- first such officer to have been conferred with this citation.
Jury is out that AVRODH Season 2 has an element of jingoism associated with it, but if one were to watch all the episodes it would be manifest that in none of the episodes have the makers gone overboard. Rather, they have underlined how important it is for the soldiers to be in touch with the local contacts. They must be nurtured and protected and not allow them to face the firing line when it comes to crunch. SEASON 2 of AVRODH, has highlighted it twice over, once when one of the informers of Major Pradeep Bhattacharya is caught by the local militants, he makes it a point to get him out of the sticky mess and secondly when an informer is released and he goes back to occupied Kashmir to provide vital inputs for the army.
There are comments in some quarters about supposed justification of notebandi in a justified manner in the SEASON-2, as trying to be politically correct! Fact of the matter however is that the government of the day when it took the decision had this objective in mind and governments of the day can take such administrative decisions factoring in the situations that they have to confront. AVRODH Season 2 has the potential to engage the audience, especially the younger generation and provide to them insight into the happenings of the recent past in a detailed documented manner, with an element of fiction thrown in obviously to engage the audience. Such valour needs to be shared by the common public of the country to understand how a nation evolves on its path of development.
