Indian Noir Podcast [Review]

In an ancient society with complex social and cultural problems, noir genre has more than a natural place in Indian story telling. This podcast would perfectly prove my point. 

Indian Noir Podcast is a semi-anthology audio drama with currently two sets of stories: His Night Begins and Fear. His Night Begins is a disturbing avenge story of a hit man, set in the midst of a sex-trafficking industry. While Fear is heavier on the horror side, the story of an Indian demon and a tale involving a tired software engineer and his inevitable fight with his past.

  

Episodes on each story are fairly short, most of it are only under 10 minutes and the longest are barely 20 minutes. The episode release is scheduled weekly, but in the beginning, earlier episodes for different stories was a little bit dispersed. Therefore, for new listeners that want to catch up, I highly recommend a custom playlist for a better listening experience. 

Indian Noir is one man show, with the creator Nikesh Murali multi-tasking as the main narrator, as well as voicing every other characters on the story. And dear lord...he is impeccable. He is the scornful man, laden with guilt and devoid of hope, and a couple minutes later, he is the 14 year old girl chained and trapped, he is the hitman's mistress, he is the ex-wife, the corrupt police, the crook, the mad priest.

There to be said, Indian Noir is really not an easy story to listen. I binged the entire His Story Begins in one day, and oh how I wish I didn't do it, I need hours of cat videos therapy after that. It is dark, gritty, and the depiction of violence and abuse can be something that is not all people could handle. For me personally, as a woman living in a country that has similar socio-cultural issue, it is a really tough story to listen. 

Still, I have to say that it is an amazing experience. 

It is hard not to get sucked into this podcast when you have someone like Nikesh Murali as your storyteller. He proves that sometimes you don't really need a high-tech sound engineering to be an immersive podcast.


Note:

• Indian Noir Podcast could be found in their official website, Apple Podcast, Audioboom, and your usual buddy podcatcher.
• Caution for: boy this be a lot... rape, kidnapping, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, sexual assault, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, hotdamnsomany violence, very strong language, sexual contents, drugging, incest, torture, hostage situation, presence of weapons, guns and explosions, alcoholism, drugs addiction, depression, divorce, religion issue, corrupt police, stressful situations, adulthood crisis, suicidal thoughts, blood, body horror