Nothing grooves Indians more than the paranormal, the occult, the restless spirits—tantra at times breathes in every corner of the subcontinent. Whether you choose to believe it or not, it exists. Sometimes it is loud, sometimes quiet, but never irrelevant. We almost forgot Gaurav Tiwari, the man who dared the scare, and brought in a movement, a whole community for a section of people, who believed in an afterlife. He was India’s first paranormal investigator. Born in Dwarka, Delhi, at the age of 31, his body was found mysteriously hanging in his bathroom. While the police blatantly ruled it a suicide. But people believe that his fate was sealed by the very paranormal forces he used to chase down.
It’s applaudable that Amazon MX Player revived the forgotten story with Bhay – The Gaurav Tiwari Mystery. The eight-episode series is helmed by Robbie Grewal. The series features Karan Tacker, Kalki Koechlin, Saloni Batra, Danish Sood, Shubham Choudhury, Nimisha Nair, and others in pivotal roles.
This series unfolds less as a linear narrative and more as an intricate cycle that finally reaches its destined convergence—an echo of the phrase “until we meet again,” which Gaurav in the series utters. In forgetting Gaurav, we summoned him back. In the final episode, his words cut through fiction: he has returned, coerced by a sense of looming peril that threatens us all.
The series traces Gaurav’s journey. The series showcases real-time footage of his encounters with otherworldly entities, blurring the line between fact and legend and pulling viewers into his chilling reality. Yet, the narrative is not an exhausting march of terror—well-timed moments of levity and sharp punchlines offer welcome relief from the darkness.
The disturbingly good part about the series is that, in the end, it plants a doubt in our minds, and we question whether it was all a coincidence or something far more sinister. Gaurav’s voice in the end makes us question our own encounters with the unexplained.
