‘Unheard’ Telugu web series review: Conversations on political history

If you can look past the staged theatre-like presentation, ‘Unheard’ can whet the appetite to know more about India’s freedom struggle, through conflicting ideologies

The term binge-watching has become synonymous with the way web series are consumed. Driven by the curiosity to know what happens next, episodes after episodes, and seasons after seasons are consumed. But what if a series is stripped of cinematic frills and tries to whet our appetite for political history, leaving us debating on conflicting viewpoints? The Telugu web series Unheard, streaming on Disney+ Hotstar, follows a conversational format; some of the episodes resemble a staged theatre production. Ideology-laced dialogues and the actors that speak them ensure that there’s drama.

The six episodes present different ideologies from the early 1900s to 1950 that shaped India’s freedom struggle. In the first episode, Dr Chalapathi (Baladitya) flaunts his stylish coat stitched by John Burton tailoring unit in Secunderabad. He also talks about hobnobbing at Secunderabad Club and doesn’t think much of India’s fight against colonial rule. The woman listening to him, Padma (Chandini Chowdary) is dressed in a khadi sari; she tries to make him see the big picture — that the administration is spending only a fraction on infrastructure and that we, Indians, stand to gain a lot more by being independent. This is 1920, after the Spanish Flu (1918) has wreaked havoc across the country and common people have witnessed British apathy during the pandemic.

Unheard is fiction inspired by history; it is as much about Hyderabad as it is about India. As one of the characters points out, different people chose different methods to reach the same destination — independent India.