New Amazon and Netflix dramas take in themes that India\u2019s established cinema rarely touches, with millions of potential subscribers available <\/p>\n
\u2018The three big \u2018no\u2019s in Indian cinema are sexuality, religion and politics,\u201d says Anurag Kashyap. \u201cAnd in Sacred Games we address all three.\u201d The Netflix series, which Kashyap co-directed, takes viewers to places Bollywood rarely does. It could be seen as India\u2019s answer to Narcos: a dense, tense crime saga that closely tracks real-world history: political and police corruption, organised crime, religious tension, nuclear terrorism. The story switches between the present day, where a Sikh detective (Saif Ali Khan) gets wind of an imminent terrorist attack on Mumbai, and the 1980s, tracking the rise of a charismatic but ruthless gangster (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui). There is blood, sex, and violence, not to mention a trailblazing transgender character<\/a>. \u201cYou cannot do that in mainstream cinema and have an audience,\u201d Kashyap says. \u201cIt\u2019s a given that movie-watching in India is a family experience, a community experience. Families didn\u2019t sit together to see Sacred Games<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Kashyap is a maverick in Indian cinema. For 15 years, he has operated outside the commercial mainstream, writing, directing and producing provocative, relatively low-budget movies at a prodigious rate. But now Kashyap finds himself at the crest of a new wave of Indian content that could permanently alter the landscape. With 1.3 billion people and more than 500 million internet subscribers, not to mention flatlining growth in other territories, the streaming giants have been moving into India big time. Both Netflix and Amazon launched their services there in 2016, taking on larger local rivals such as the Disney-owned Hotstar. Amazon pledged to create 17 original Indian series; Netflix 16 original series and 22 films<\/a>. Not only are these companies telling stories Bollywood can\u2019t, they are bringing them to audiences Bollywood can\u2019t reach. Sacred Games was a phenomenon in India, but the show was watched by twice as many people outside the country, according to Netflix.<\/p>\n