Digital Object Identifier
The Amazon Prime Video series Paatal Lok (2020) is often characterised as a contemporary crime thriller. This paper explores how Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) offer an interdisciplinary and indigenous framework that can be strategically mobilised to explore the socio-political universe of Paatal Lok to create a new possibility in terms of interpretation.This paper analyses the intersectionality of indigenous epistemologies and digital screen cultures, particularly OTT platforms,to examine how Paatal Lok reimagines the triadic cosmology of Svarga (“Heaven”), Dharti (“Earth”) and Patala (“Netherworld”) into a contemporary mapping of caste, gender and urban/rural divides. Key principles of IKS like holistic relationality, samanvaya (“harmonious integration”),indigenous theories of ethics and knowledge are the theoretical framework of the paper. Further, the paper uses a close reading of the text to argue that Paatal Lok simultaneously appropriates and reconstructs Indic idioms to critique hegemonic structures of oppression on Indian OTT platforms. The study argues that Hathiram Chaudhary, the protagonist of the show,is a modern sutradhar (narrator) of the series and Vedic stories like the story of Narasimha-Hiranyakashyap act as a connection between ancient wisdom and modern realities. The paper posits that it is important to bring IKS into dialogue with streaming media to counter Eurocentric media theory.
Ms. Namita Paul, Prof. Anil Aneja. “Decolonising the Digital Screen: Tri Loka as a Relational Framework for Analysing Paatal Lok.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1-19. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.1.
Open Access · CC BY 4.0 · Crossref DOI ·
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