General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Dahan

Dahan: Raakan Ka Rahasya (दहन; "The Burning: The Mystery of the Raakan") is a nine-episode Hindi-language supernatural thriller web series directed by Vikranth Pawar and released on Disney+ Hotstar on 16 September 2022¹^•². Produced by Banijay Asia as a Hotstar Special, it stars Tisca Chopra as a disgraced Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer whose mining project in a Rajasthan village collides with a local legend about a cursed sorcerer¹^•³.

Key fact	Detail
Premiere	16 September 2022, Disney+ Hotstar (Hotstar Specials)¹
Format	9 episodes, Hindi, horror and mystery genres, 18+ certificate¹^•⁴
Director and writers	Vikranth Pawar (director and creator); writers Nisarg Mehta, Shiva Bajpai, and Nikhil Nair¹^•²
Production	Banijay Asia; producers Deepak Dhar, Rishi Negi, and Mahesh Korade¹
Lead cast	Tisca Chopra (Avani Raut), Saurabh Shukla (Pramukh Swaroop), Rajesh Tailang, Mukesh Tiwari, Ankur Nayyar¹^•⁵
Languages	Original Hindi; dubbed in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, and Bengali¹
Setting	The fictional village of Shilaspura, Rajasthan, called "The Land of the Dead"⁶

Spoilers

Premise

The story is set in Shilaspura, a village in Rajasthan that, according to legend, was cursed centuries ago by a sorcerer named Ridhiyakan, who was deceitfully beheaded there. Villagers believe his spirit remains imprisoned in a mound called Shilasthal, and that anyone who disturbs the knoll will unleash destruction⁷. In the present day, Avni Raut, an IAS officer seeking to rebuild her career after a corruption allegation and her husband's suicide, learns that satellite surveys have detected rare earth minerals around the village's caves²^•³. Her push to mine the region sets off a series of horrific incidents, and the series keeps open the question of whether the events are supernatural or have a rational explanation⁷.

The village leader Pramukh, played by Saurabh Shukla, warns that disturbing the site believed to be a demon's lair will bring a curse, and he influences the villagers to block Avani from entering the cave⁸^•³. Supporting characters include Avni's rebellious son Anay (Rohan Joshi), her ornithologist friend Sandeep Bajaj (Ankur Nayyar), and her assistant Sachet (Pankaj Sharma)²^•⁹.

Themes and development

Science versus superstition is the series' stated core conflict. Director Vikranth Pawar said he had long been interested in "the question and tussle between traditional practice and modern development that we often face as a developing country", and built the character of Avani Raut to represent "everything scientific, progressive and logical" in collision with a community bound by tradition³. Writer Nisarg Mehta described the central question as whether there are things that lack a scientific, rational explanation, and said a small village in rural Rajasthan was chosen as the setting to create an atmosphere of alienation for a protagonist arriving from a big city to push a development project⁶.

The writers, who also included Shiva Bajpai and Nikhil Nair, deliberately built an Indian lore for the village rather than a Western horror template. Nair explained that they drew on the kind of place-based stories from the pre-internet age that had no point of origin, reasoning that what cannot be explained, only narrated, is what scares people¹⁰. Reviewers noted the resulting genre mix: occult behavior, disorienting flashbacks, warnings about unchecked ecological destruction, and chatter about the unforeseen effects of climate change².

Tisca Chopra, who plays Avani, framed her character's arc as the question of where to draw the line between science and superstition, and said Pawar was the main reason she joined the project¹¹.

Production and filming

The series was shot in unexplored, rugged villages of Rajasthan with extensive outdoor filming. Pawar described difficult conditions: desert temperatures of 47 degrees Celsius, underwater shooting, work on mountaintops, and scenes with children and animals that required heavy precautionary measures. He summarized the approach by saying the team "have done everything that everyone advised not to do"³.

Reception

Audience response was strong by one industry measure. In October 2022, Hindustan Times reported that the Banijay Asia-produced series had become the most watched series on OTT, quoting Chopra calling it "an experiment that paid off big time" and Shukla praising its balance of the unknown with reasonableness¹².

Critical reviews were divided on pacing. The Times of India gave the season 4.0 out of 5, praising the storytelling, performances (particularly Chopra and a character arc by Pankaj Sharma), and visuals, while noting that the show loses its grip intermittently after mid-season and becomes convoluted¹³. Scroll.in's review called it "an overheated battle between rationality and superstition", judging that the material did not fill nine episodes and that a feature film would have worked as well, while still finding it an intermittently engrossing allegory about human greed². A later retrospective review characterized the trade-off as an evocative world and worthwhile themes held back by a story that does not always use its length effectively⁸.

Other uses of the title

The name Dahan has been used for several other Indian productions. In 2010, Zee TV planned a fiction show titled Dahan, first with Endemol India and then with Hats Off Productions, with Farooq Sheikh, Yashpal Sharma, Lubna Salim, and Jatin Shah finalized for pivotal roles¹⁴. A Bengali-language psychological horror mystery series titled Dahan launched on the STAGE OTT platform on 16 July 2026 as part of the service's Bengali lineup¹⁵^•¹⁶. An Odia horror film, Dahaan (2026), directed by Anupam Patnaik and running 132 minutes, was acquired for South India by the streaming platform Aha¹⁷^•¹⁸.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › South and Southeast Asian serials › Hindi serials and Indian Hindi-language dramas › Crime and thriller serials

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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