In the critically-acclaimed comedy Khosla Ka Ghosla, a middle-class household hires pehelwans (wrestlers) to forcefully repossess their plot from land grabbers.

As Dangals of Crime, a gritty two-part documentary sequence launched on discovery+ Original earlier this 12 months reveals, this reel state of affairs could also be extra actual than we notice.

A collaboration between Vice Studios Productions and Discovery India, Dangals of Crime focuses on the unfortunately-inherent hyperlinks between crime and the ancient sport of wrestling.

Dangals of Crime: India’s satisfaction or disgrace?

Stemming from the surprising case of a wrestler’s homicide inside the famed Chhatrasal Stadium in New Delhi — with one of many accused being none aside from two-time Olympic medalist Sushil Kumar — Dangals of Crime delves into the 30+ 12 months sample of crime within the broader NCR belt involving former wrestlers turned gang leaders.

Via two separate unique electronic mail interviews, we spoke to the Dangal of Crime‘s director Niyantha Shekar and in addition Discovery, Inc.’s Director of Original Content (South Asia) Sai Abishek P R on conceptualizing and executing the sequence, key takeaways and Discovery’s broader sports content technique in India.

1) Relative to non-sports content material, how straightforward/tough has it been to supply a sports-themed documentary? Are there any distinctive benefits/disadvantages/challenges you got here throughout?

NS: I wouldn’t say there have been any explicit challenges that we confronted because of the sports-themed nature of the documentary. Rather, wrestling, like most sports activities, actually lent itself to storytelling as a result of we bought to movie with wrestlers and coaches who overcame quite a bit to make it to the place they’ve, and their arduous work, resilience and grit make them very compelling characters to observe.

Wrestling can be such a visually charming sport, so it was very fascinating to discover the alternative ways through which we may movie wrestling bouts and the places/contexts through which they had been going down.

2) Did the concept of a sports-themed documentary come about merely as a one-off collaboration with an exterior manufacturing company (i.e., Vice) or is it a part of a concerted effort by Discovery India to establish/fee a number of India-centric sports-themed tales?

SA: The [Dangals of Crime] story happened as a part of constructing a real crime technique for Indian programming and leaning in on a really topical sports activities story that was on prime of individuals’s minds. It allowed us to go deeper into the story and reveal elements of it that solely the investigative documentary type may do. However, we do intend to develop and fee different related present and previous tales on Indian sports activities themes for discovery+ within the close to future.

3) Are you happy with the size of the documentary, being a two-part sequence? Would you could have most well-liked a deeper dive? Say a 4-5 half sequence?

NS: I used to be glad that we may take an hour, throughout two episodes, to discover this [Dangals of Crime] story. It gave us the chance to set context for the bigger world of wrestling and its rise in Northern India, in addition to the world of crime and gang violence rising parallelly within the area, after which dive deeper into why and the way these two worlds meet. The two-parter additionally gave us the chance to discover what options we may probably take a look at to deal with the issues raised within the sequence.

4) The success of sports activities documentaries is usually depending on the extent of analysis. Were you pleased with the pre-existing degree of documentation already accessible within the public area (because of the work of sports activities journalists) or did you are feeling your workforce needed to do many of the legwork themselves?

NS: There was numerous nice journalism that we learn by throughout our preliminary analysis part, and this helped us establish what we wished to additional discover once we began our on-ground analysis for the [Dangals of Crime] documentary sequence.

For occasion, the ebook Enter the Dangal by journalist Rudraneil Sengupta was an ideal entry level for us into the bigger historical past and context of Indian wrestling in addition to the private tales of numerous wrestlers. So had been the articles written by Jonathan Selvaraj, who has coated Indian wrestling extensively. Both these sports journalists are additionally voices in our [Dangals of Crime] documentary and assist set numerous context for the themes we discover.

5) An argument could possibly be leveled that there are such a lot of constructive tales in Indian sports activities together with wrestling, but Discovery India selected to start out Dangals of Crime. Such “negative” storylines perpetuate the stereotype of non-cricket sports activities in India being mired in crime, corruption and ignominy. Your response to this criticism?

SA: We didn’t intend to perpetuate any current stereotypes however to increase the views surrounding the game. We approached the [Dangals of Crime] story by giving a well-rounded view about every part that impacts and promotes wrestling and the issues surrounding the game because it [began to earn] worldwide acclaim through the years.

The [Dangals of Crime] sequence additionally touches on potential issues and the way they could possibly be stemmed sooner or later as a constructive side of the story for our viewers. The topic was additionally chosen because it was extraordinarily topical and one of many strengths of Discovery all over the world can be to make topical documentaries which might be related to our audiences with depth and perception, be it crime, pure catastrophe, explosive tales from the news-grabbing headlines, and many others.

6) Are there particular parameters you think about earlier than greenlighting any sports-themed challenge? Or are these parameters the identical as for non-sports initiatives?

SA: First, we take a look at very broad content material parameters throughout genres, similar to the power of the present to attraction to key ardour teams and superfans of the style. We additionally take a look at the potential skill to be considered by numerous audiences throughout the nation who love our model and the present’s skill to journey past the Indian market as properly.

Most importantly, we additionally take a look at the freshness of the subject and the story’s therapy or the best way through which it will likely be introduced alive to audiences. There are, in fact, many extra parameters we take a look at, however this captures a cross-section of key parameters that could possibly be related to this query.

7) Would you say the response to Dangals of Crime has been passable sufficient to encourage Discovery India to pursue different sports activities themed non-fiction reveals?

SA: Yes, positively. We will pursue different huge tales about Indian sports activities within the close to future. These are simply early days for us and we’re simply getting began.

Dangals of Crime is the primary discovery+ Original providing that includes a outstanding topical sports activities story.

It is a primary of its form title for us within the sports activities style and since its launch, it has exceeded our expectations. The preliminary response and constructive suggestions has inspired us to supply extra of such content material in future.

NS: I discover sports stories fascinating and would like to dive deep into one other one with Discovery and Vice sooner or later.