The Railway Men | |
---|---|
Genre | |
Created by | Shiv Rawail |
Written by | Aayush Gupta |
Directed by | Shiv Rawail |
Starring | |
Music by | Sam Slater |
Original language | Hindi |
No. of episodes | 4 |
Production | |
Executive producers |
|
Cinematography | Rubais |
Editor | Yasha Jaidev Ramchandani |
Running time | 51–65 minutes |
Production company | |
Original release | |
Network | Netflix |
Release | 18 November 2023 |
The Railway Men: The Untold Story of Bhopal 1984 is a 2023 Indian Hindi-language historical drama television miniseries about railway workers who saved many lives during the 1984 toxic gas leak at the chemical company Union Carbide India Limited's plant in Bhopal. It is produced by YRF Entertainment (the streaming division of Yash Raj Films) and stars R. Madhavan, Kay Kay Menon, Divyenndu and Babil Khan. [1] [2] Sunny Hinduja and Juhi Chawla Mehta play supporting roles.
Filmed from December 2021 to May 2022, all four episodes of the miniseries were released on Netflix on 18 November 2023.
The Railway Men is based on railway workers who saved many lives during the 1984 gas tragedy at the chemical company Union Carbide India Limited's plant in Bhopal. [3] The series is inspired by the efforts of station master Ghulam Dastagir and his team at the Bhopal Junction railway station on the night of the tragedy. [4]
No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
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1 | "Episode 1" | Shiv Rawail | Aayush Gupta | 18 November 2023 | |
Employees at the Union Carbide India Limited work under negligible safety protocols. Imad Riaz, a former employee, talks to a journalist, Kumawat, about the death of his friend at the plant due to toxic gas inhalation. He says that the management took no action and fired him instead for complaining. A manager at the plant, Kamruddin, also tries to give information to Kumawat about the lack of safety at the crumbling plant. Meanwhile, Iftekaar Siddiqui is an idealistic station master of the Bhopal Junction railway station. A dacoit named Balwant Yadav intent on looting the station safe-house introduces himself to Iftekaar as a cop in pursuit of the dacoit. On the night of 2 December 1984, due to malfunctioning instruments and untrained workers at the plant, a highly toxic gas Methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaks into the atmosphere, instantly killing many workers, including Kamruddin. | |||||
2 | "Episode 2" | Shiv Rawail | Aayush Gupta | 18 November 2023 | |
As the gas starts spreading into the highly populated Bhopal city, hordes of people begin to collapse in the streets, many of whom die. At Bhopal Junction station, Iftekaar and Balwant are initially confused by the chaos. They soon realise that people who were indoors were seemingly unharmed. They try to gather the crowds into the station waiting room. Due to incomplete cable repair work, communication systems are down, and Iftekaar has no way to reach nearby stations and warn them. Imad, who had begun a new job as a loco pilot, becomes aware of the gas leak due to his past history. He goes to the station to warn Iftekaar. Meanwhile, at a nearby station, Rati Pandey, a general manager for the Indian Railways, becomes aware of the situation. | |||||
3 | "Episode 3" | Shiv Rawail | Aayush Gupta | 18 November 2023 | |
Rati tries to persuade DG (Personnel) Rajeshwari Janglay to take action and send help to the people stranded in Bhopal. However, her pleas are neglected by her superiors. Rajeshwari entrusts Rati to disobey the orders and help them anyway. Rati inspires several railway workers to help him in the cause, and they set off towards Bhopal. At Bhopal Junction, Iftekaar, Imad, and Balwant find their own way to rescue people trapped at the station by putting them in a goods train. Meanwhile, Madsen, the American head of the plant, refuses to provide any help. A German scientist, who seemingly has an anti-dote to MIC is thwarted in his effort by both the Indian Government and Union Carbide. | |||||
4 | "Episode 4" | Shiv Rawail | Aayush Gupta | 18 November 2023 | |
Unable to warn them, a train with 1000 passengers makes its way towards Bhopal Junction. The train is delayed due to anti-Sikh rioters. Meanwhile, Rati and his workers make their way towards the junction as well. Meanwhile, Iftekaar, Imad, Constable and Prasad (The Assistant Station Master) get in the locomotive, which has stopped working. Then, they hear the Gorakhpur Express coming nearby. They find a way to prevent a collision between the makeshift wagon and the Express train. The ASM takes detonators and moves forward towards a nearby point and places the detonators. He eventually dies due to methyl isocyanate inhalation. Meanwhile, the pilot, hearing the explosions, immediately stops the train. It stops just short of the makeshift wagon in the junction. Iftekaar then couples up the wagons and attempts to warn everyone of coming out. Meanwhile, Rati is stopped a station short at Misrod. Meanwhile, as Iftekaar and the rest are trying to get distraught passengers back inside the train, the Ijtema pilgrims suddenly get inside, appearing to be panic stricken. Meanwhile, Rati gets back on track and begins rushing to Bhopal JN. Meanwhile, as Iftekaar and Constable get everyone inside and Constable enters the train, a policeman suddenly appears to Constable and informs him of the Relief train (Rati's GM Inspection Special) coming to the Junction. The train needs platform 1 clear, the same platform the train is already using. Constable informs this to Imad, who immediately goes back and sees the Relief train. The Gorakhpur Express and the wagon have departed, and the trains are now nearing collision. Iftekaar and Imad find a way to avoid a collision, but Imad dies due to inhalation. After helping the people board the rescue train, Iftekaar too seemingly dies. Balwant retrieves his key to steal money from the vault. Rati helps the survivors with medical supplies, and it is revealed that Rajeshwari and he are married. Meanwhile, Kumawat, appalled at the disaster, begins documenting the event through photographs. On the next day, rescue trains carry many survivors away from the city. At a makeshift graveyard, thousands of bodies are seen to be buried and burnt. Iftekaar, like a few others who were pronounced dead, wakes up. Balwant has a change of heart, and returns the money. Many years later, Kumawat revisits Bhopal, and sees that long-term effects of the disaster are still being felt. |
The Railway Men marked the directorial debut of Shiv Rawail, who was an assistant director at Yash Raj Films. [1] It also marked the first streaming fiction series of the company, under their subdivision YRF Entertainment. [1]
The series began filming on 1 December 2021 and wrapped on 11 May 2022. [6] [7]
Two former employees of Union Carbide India Limited, convicted in the gas leak case, filed a plea to prevent the release of the series; the Bombay High Court rejected their case. [8]
Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in found The Railway Men to be a "compelling saga of ordinary heroism"; she particularly praised the production design by Rajat Poddar for his "remarkably faithful recreations" of the era. [10] Sonil Dedhia of News18 considered it a "passionate, emotionally resonant, and incredibly moving" tale of under-appreciated heroes, but felt that too many subplots and backstories prevented it from being a "taut thriller". [11] Mayur Sanap of Rediff.com commended Rawail for handling the tragic event with "seriousness and respect without going overboard with the dramatic impact". [12]
The Indian Express 's Shubhra Gupta termed it "a worthy effort, which brings back an expansive, old-fashioned style of storytelling to a still-relevant event", and particularly praised the performances of Kay Kay Menon and Babil Khan. [13] India Today 's Zinia Bandyopadhyay considered Khan to be the "real star of the show". [14] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV opined, "The Railway Men is buoyed by a clutch of laudable performances and storytelling that does not slide below a certain level of competence. But it could have been much, much more." [15] Hindustan Times 's Santanu Das believed that the series' handling of the tragedy was not at par with the handling of the Chernobyl disaster by the HBO miniseries Chernobyl (2019). [16]
Bhopal is the capital city of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of both Bhopal district and Bhopal division. It is known as the City of Lakes, due to presence of various natural and artificial lakes. It is also one of the greenest cities in India. It is the 16th largest city in India and 131st in the world. After the formation of Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal was part of the Sehore district. It was bifurcated in 1972 and a new district, Bhopal, was formed. Flourishing around 1707, the city was the capital of the former Bhopal State, a princely state of the British ruled by the Nawabs of Bhopal until India's independence in 1947.
The Bhopal disaster or Bhopal gas tragedy was a chemical accident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. Considered the world's worst industrial disaster, over 500,000 people in the small towns around the plant were exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate (MIC). Estimates vary on the death toll, with the official number of immediate deaths being 2,259. In 2008, the Government of Madhya Pradesh paid compensation to the family members of 3,787 victims killed in the gas release, and to 574,366 injured victims. A government affidavit in 2006 stated that the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries. Others estimate that 8,000 died within two weeks, and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases.
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