Lost and Found
After the fall-out with his Father over his damning report card, episode 2 of Paatal Lok begins with Chaudhary berating his son Siddhi but he refuses to listen, leaving the house without a word. However, Chaudhary has even bigger problems to contend with when his brother-in-law Jitu arrives for a few days to stay. At the station, Constable Bhati attempts to extract information from Tyagi, beating him down while the suspect looks at him emotionless after 45 lashes. Realizing they’re getting nothing from him, Chaudhary tries a different tactic and turns his attention to Mary instead, who admits that they took a towel from the hotel room that morning. Chaudhary and Ansari visit the hotel where they learn that the men were arguing over a phone that night and that Tope Singh is a chain smoker. Using this to their advantage, the pair continue their interrogation but this time by trying to level with Singh. They offer him cigarettes in exchange for information about working with Tyagi but fail to get anything substantial to work on. Deciding to try a slightly different tactic, the pair play good cop/bad cop with Kabir M which seems to work. Later that day they sit with Kabir and he reveals how he was given the job by a car mechanic known as Taariq, along with the specific instructions he had to follow from there. He was just a driver and caught in over his head but does disclose the name “Master Ji” as the one who oversaw the entire operation. Desperate for leads, Chaudhary decides to go after the sunken phone, believing that Master Ji may well be a saved number on his phone. Meanwhile Sanjeev sits with his Father who talks about the good this current government are doing and about the state of the people in the country. He tells his son not to be trouble maker and leave, which he does but only as far as the police station. Once there, Chaudhary brings out the suspects for Sanjeev to look at. As he stares down Tyagi, he eventually goes on to tell Chaudhary he doesn’t recognize any of them but something’s clearly stirred inside him after seeing Tyagi. Following a lead on Mary’s phone, Chaudhary and Ansari track down Taariq and race after him but unfortunately they lose him thanks to hitting a girl on their bike. Following some unpleasantness back at the station after this accident, Chaudhary and Ansari continue on again, more determined than ever to get to the bottom of what’s happening as they ride a bus to Chitrakoot. As the episode closes out, we see both of them fishing out the yellow phone from the water. Who is Master Ji? What are the men hiding? And will Chaudhary’s investigation lead him to the truth? More questions are raised over this one at the end of this second episode but the 45 minutes of drama do well to keep things engaging despite a slower pacing this time out. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, especially given the time spent to flesh out the characters and learning more about the suspects. With Taariq still out there though and Chaudhary starting to feel the pressure, quite what will happen next remains to be seen.
