Murder, criminal, and the drama

Documentary is just a format of storytellingrdquo says Tanya Bami director International Originals Netflix ldquoI think everyone is curious about India and it has so many stories to tell With true crime shows yes why you discover them is the curiosity for crime but eventually it becomes about human behaviour psychology subcultures our upbringing ambitions they are stories about people at the endrdquo Bami and Netflixrsquos calculation seem to be workingAfter the Squid Game fever died down OTT lovers have found a conversation starter in the House of Secrets The Burari Deaths The threeepisode special series directed by Leena Yadav also known for her 2015 film Parched is about the family of 11 in Delhirsquos Burari neighbourhood who were found hanging in a strange formation one morning in 2018 Was it occult a fallout of mental health issues or supernatural occurrences that led to this strange phenomenon is what the documentary tries to address Itrsquos been described by viewers as bone chilling and eeriemdashalmost like they were watching fiction Yadav says that she took up the Burari case only because she felt there was much more to the picture than people knew ldquoI just hope everyone sees it with empathy and not judgementrdquoProducer Claire Cahill and her crew followed the Bengaluru police as they solved crimes of murder and kidnapping for the docuseries Crime Stories Indian DetectivesThe trend of OTT audiences watching true crime documentaries may have started with 2018rsquos Wild Wild Country which followed the rise of Osho and the ultimate decline Then came Bad Boy Billionaires in 2019 which followed the fate of industrialists Vijay Mallya jeweller Nirav Modi and businessman Subroto Roy They all may seem different when compared with the Burari deaths but they too had a true crime at the centre of the narrative But India also has a history of TV viewers watching whodunits There was Indiarsquos Most Wanted hosted by Suhaib Ilyasi who was caught later for allegedly killing his own wife There is also Savdhan India and Crime Patrol amongst the most watched Itrsquos clear Indians like their crime Leena Yadav Siddharth Jain and Anup SoniAs the director of the Mallya episode in Bad Boy Billionaires Dylan Mohan says ldquoIn a panel I was on Tanya Bami said that 76 per cent of their Indian subscribers have watched a documentary title in the past 12 months True crime is a safe bet Sometimes the only problem is that the social issue that one wants to bring up should not get overshadowed by the blood lustrdquo says Mohan adding that he feels that itrsquos a phase that India is going through ldquoWith true crime you fight the perception of a documentary being boring and factual Why do platforms want true crimemdashitrsquos a return on investment as it keeps getting watched even years later while drama if not watched in the first 10 days drops offrdquoTanya Bami Claire Cahill and Dylan MohanSidharth Jain founder of StoryInk says that India has always been watching crime shows The reason behind the sudden uptick could be because the ldquopremium audiencesrdquo who watch OTT have discovered them now ldquoWe donrsquot watch TV which is by appointment You have to tune in one day and at one time So itrsquos more about the medium than content Savdhan India will have a much bigger audience than Burarirdquo feels Jain who explains why making true crime documentaries is hard in India ldquoWe have no access to archival footagemdasheither pictures or videos unlike our American counterparts Burari happened in 2018 so it still had some footage which is what makes a documentary come alive But itrsquos a step in the right directionrdquoLive footage is something that Claire Cahill series producer of Crime Stories India Detectives had a lot of Directed by Jack Warrender and N Amit the Netflix docuseries deals with everything from murder to kidnapping and is a peek into the lives of the investigators in the Bengaluru police force Cahill came to Bengaluru in 2018 and realised that the city was a microcosm of the rest of India and that it would be interesting to know what was happening in its crime world That the Bengaluru police commissioner of Whitefield was supportive and gave her crew access was what makes the documentary so immersive ldquoWe just had one major rulemdashdonrsquot interfere In the end itrsquos all about seeing how people are behaving in a city thatrsquos growing rapidlyrdquoAnup Soni who hosted Sonyrsquos Crime Patrol for eight years 2010 to 2018 says that crime is popular no matter what format ldquoIf you say you are making a documentary on water shortage nobody will watch it People have a voyeuristic mind in India itrsquos like when an accident takes place people stand around and watchrdquo And though Soni admits itrsquos that strange curiosity that drives people he also says that if in the end the crime documentary has information that makes life better for an individual itrsquos beneficial ldquoWhat did we learn from Burari We realise that no tantrik beliefs are going to help us or save our lives And hopefully we wonrsquot do that in our own lives Itrsquos the andar ki baat that helps us eventually and thatrsquos why crime documentaries should be watchedrdquo