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Now Streaming | Home Grown Horror

The series, featuring the character, revolves around the lesser known stories written by Bengali author Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay known for literary gems like Pather Panchali and Chander Pahar

Be it his first film Gandu, or his last offering Garbage, which travelled to the Busan International Film Festival, or his recent web series Taranath Tantrik that released on Hoichoi.tv, Qaushiq Mukherjee’s (popularly known as Q) protagonists are often not heroes.

One such character is Taranath Tantrik, an occult practitioner with fantastic powers, who has now fallen from grace and on hard times. He can be even wooed to tell tales from his fantastic adventurous life for a cigarette and a cup of tea. The series, featuring the character, revolves around the lesser known stories written by Bengali author Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay known for literary gems like Pather Panchali and Chander Pahar.

Bandyopadhyay created Taranath and wrote two short stories; his son Taradas wrote six other stories featuring Taranath. This web series, starring Jayant Kripalani, Kaushik Roy, Satrajit Sarkar, Joyraj Bhattacharya and Shweta Chaudhuri, focuses mostly on the two stories written by Bibhutibhushan.

Opening credits sets the tone with stark monochrome artwork by Sambaran Das and Arka Alam used very effectively with music by Dipankar Jojo Chaki and Q.

The story starts on a sceptical note, echoing perhaps the present day audience’s disbelief in tantra sadhana. Two rational people-the narrator Bibhuti and his friend Shankar-visit Taranath having heard of his famous powers of astrological prediction. The story then continues with what the older Taranath (played by Kripalani) recounts to them.

Each episode lasts about 18 minutes and the treatment is just right. Horror in the Indian context with tantriks and graveyards can easily stray into trite and cringe-worthy territory. But this stays away from it with its period depiction and mostly black and white visuals. The music and the make-up are suitably creepy and the pace quite racy. Just two contentions, however: to the Bengali ear, Kripalani’s accent in Bengali, though quite good, sounds decidedly polished (almost anglicised), especially for a Bengali tantrik speaking in the 1950s, and the web series could do well with subtitles.