By Team TJC | 26 July, 2020
The concept of home entertainment has evolved and Indian audience have become quite familiar with the OTT streaming platforms. During the period of lockdown, OTT platforms have seen a surge in consumption and subscriber count.
It has paved the way for creation of fresh digital content and hence web series has gained quite popularity among certain age groups. Popular OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, Hoichoi, Voot, Zee5, TVF Play etc are gradually capturing the market.
The best part is that Assamese content creators, musicians, actors and sound recordists are getting an opportunity to showcase their content and talent to a larger audience, thanks to the OTT platforms.
To name a few-
In TVF Play’s popular original series ‘Tripling Season 2’, the very talented Nilotpal Bora – one of the rising musicians of Assam has supervised as the music director for the entire series. Along with him, famous Bollywood singer and Assam’s beloved Angaraag Papon Mahanta has rendered his soulful voice in the travel song from the series. Nilotpal debuted as a singer in web series way back in TVF’s ‘Yeh Meri Family’ with the song Dhaga.
Another creation of TVF’s, the recently released ‘Panchayat’ which is available on Amazon Prime has been praised across the country for its refreshing content. The music of this much loved series is rendered by none other than ‘National Award Winner for Best Non-Feature Film Music Direction’- Assam’s Anurag Saikia. State’s budding singer Shankuraj Konwar has lent his soulful voice in this comedy-drama series. Anurag has also over the years composed music for a TV series named ‘Stories by Rabindranath Tagore’, which is available on Netflix.
Icing on the cake is of course, co-writer and executive producer of ‘Paatal Lok’ – Sudip Sharma who has done a tremendous job hails from Guwahati, Assam. And we cannot miss mentioning another ‘Paatal Lok’ connection from Assam – Boloy Kumar Doloi who has worked as re-recording mixer in the critically acclaimed web series streaming on Amazon Prime.
In the field of acting-
The amazing Adil Hussain played the role of a top cop in Netflix’s crime drama series – ‘Delhi Crime’, directed by Indo-Canadian writer-director Richie Mehta. Hussain’s acting along with the protagonist Shefali Shah has been highly appreciated by critics.
Talented cabin crew professional from Assam Priyanka Bora acted in Ekta Kapoor’s ‘Ragini MMS Returns’. This romantic horror series produced by Kapoor is one of the most viewed one from ALT Balaji.
Monuj Borkotoky, a young and charismatic actor from Assam acted in one of the most popular web series – ‘Sacred Games’ on Netflix. Monuj, played the role of a manager and shared screen space with the Nawab of Bollywood Saif Ali Khan.
And the recently released ‘Paatal Lok’ produced by Anushka Sharma has another awesome Assam connection. Bodhisattva Sharma, a young Assamese boy who lives in Delhi acted in the much talked series ‘Paatal Lok’. Bodhisattva played the role of Siddharth, who is the son of Inspector Hathi Ram played by ace actor Jaideep Ahlawat. Bodhisattva has received a lot of appreciation for his work, craft and raw acting skills.
Bondip Sarma, who hails from Guwahati, meanwhile played a prominent role in the web series ‘ASUR’ alongside ace actor Arshad Warsi. ‘ASUR’ is one of the most viewed series on OTT platform VOOT.
In the field of direction-
Assamese girl Bandita Bora has directed the season 2 of the web series ‘Size Matters’, which is currently streaming on ULLU. She has several other projects in her kitty.
Moreover, Assam girls Arpita Dey and Banashree Deka have worked as casting assistant director and costume assistant director respectively in the popular series – ‘ASUR’.
The above shared names are only a few from Assam’s bunch of talents. Assamese talents are indeed showing extraordinary performance in various streaming platforms and web series. Hope they continue to glorify Assam in the most creative way in the near future.
