Leila (TV series)

Overview

Leila is an Indian Hindi-language dystopian drama streaming television series produced by Open Air Films for Netflix. The series premiered on 14 June 2019 and consists of one season of six episodes. It is loosely based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Indian journalist and author Prayaag Akbar.

Key Facts

Premise

The series is set in a near-future totalitarian state called Aryavarta, where society is rigidly segregated by community, religion and purity. Walled enclaves separate communities, water and air are scarce commodities, and a regime led by a figure known as Joshi enforces ideological conformity. The narrative follows Shalini Pathak (played by Huma Qureshi), a privileged Hindu woman married to a Muslim man, Rizwan Chaudhary. After her family is attacked for violating purity codes, Shalini is sent to a re-education facility while her young daughter Leila is taken away. The story traces her search for her daughter across the stratified landscape of Aryavarta.

Cast

• Huma Qureshi as Shalini Pathak Chaudhary
• Siddharth as Bhanu
• Rahul Khanna as Rizwan Chaudhary
• Sanjay Suri as Dr Iyer
• Arif Zakaria as Guru Ma
• Seema Biswas as Maa
• Akash Khurana as Joshi

Production

The series was developed by Urmi Juvekar, who served as showrunner and lead writer. The six episodes were directed by three filmmakers: Indo-Canadian director Deepa Mehta directed the first two episodes, Shanker Raman directed the next two, and Kannada filmmaker Pawan Kumar directed the final two. The series was produced by Open Air Films, the production house of Allan Mandelbaum and Deepa Mehta. It was Netflix's second Indian original series after Sacred Games.

Principal photography took place largely in and around Delhi and the National Capital Region. The production design emphasised a layered urban environment combining decaying infrastructure with high-tech surveillance systems to evoke the divided world of Aryavarta.

Episodes

1. "Leila"
2. "Pataal Lok"
3. "Lover"
4. "Pankaj"
5. "Lalbagh"
6. "Walls"

Reception

Critical response in India was mixed to positive. Reviewers praised Huma Qureshi's central performance, the world-building and the production design, while some critics felt the pacing was uneven and the political allegory was at times overt. Internationally, the series drew comparison with works such as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale for its depiction of a patriarchal, segregationist regime.

The series also drew criticism on social media from sections of viewers who alleged that it depicted Hindu majoritarian politics in an unfavourable light. Director Deepa Mehta and the cast publicly defended the series, stating that it was a work of speculative fiction grounded in the themes of the source novel rather than a portrayal of any specific community.

Significance

As one of the early Hindi-language original series commissioned by a global streaming platform, Leila contributed to the expansion of long-form serialised drama on Indian over-the-top platforms in the late 2010s. It was among the first Indian streaming productions to engage explicitly with dystopian science fiction, a genre with limited prior presence in mainstream Indian television. The series is also noted for being directed by a team that included Deepa Mehta, marking one of her significant forays into Indian streaming content.

Related topics

• Deepa Mehta
• Huma Qureshi
• Prayaag Akbar
• Sacred Games (TV series)
• Netflix in India
• Pawan Kumar (director)
• Shanker Raman
• Indian web series

References

• Akbar, Prayaag. Leila. Simon & Schuster India, 2017.
• Netflix India press materials for Leila, June 2019.
• Contemporary reviews in The Hindu, The Indian Express, Hindustan Times, Scroll.in and Film Companion, June 2019.