OTTplay Awards 2022: Know Your Winners: Tabbar for Best Original Web Series (Jury)

Tabbar has won Best Original Web Series award from the Jury at the recently held OTTplay Awards and Conclave 2022. The web series’ director Ajitpal Singh received the award on stage for the Hindi-Punjabi show. For the uninitiated, Tabbar was considered among the best web series of 2021. The show was competing with the likes of The Family Man and Aspirants. Here’s all you need to know about Tabbar, Ajitpal and what the cast is doing now…

About the winner

Tabbar is a web series which released on Sony LIV in 2021. The show featured Pavan Malhotra, Supriya Pathak, Gagan Arora, Ranvir Shorey, Sahil Mehta, Paramvir Cheema and Nupur Nagpal in the lead roles. A family drama, this one questions the very root of Indian families – of how far will any family member go to save his/her family?

Pavan Malhotra plays the father, a retired police constable named Omkar, Supriya Pathak the mother Sargun, Gagan Arora and Sahil Mehta their sons Happy and Tegi in the series. Ranvir Shorey is seen in a secret role. He plays Ajeet Sodhi in the series. Nupur Nagpal plays Gagan’s girlfriend Palak while Paramvir Cheema is a cop named Lucky who is more like a son and brother to the family. However, currently one member from this close-knit family has committed a crime which Lucky cannot know about. His life or duty will be at stake if he comes to know. The same holds true for anybody who even gets a whiff about what the family has been up to.

The show also stars Kanwaljeet Singh as Inderji and Akashdeep Sabir as Chachaji in pivotal roles. Mukesh Chhabra worked on casting the actors in the series with Rahul Purohit, Renuka Purohit and Natasha Pushkarna.

Sneha Khanwalkar gave the music for the show, Arun Kumar Pandey was responsible for the cinematography while Parikshhit Jha edited the series. Tasneem Khan designed the costumes for the actors on the show with help from Sonal Kalsukar while Pratik Shikare took care of their make-up.

Ajitpal Singh, who had received the award for the show, had made his directorial debut in a web series through Tabbar. Given the kind of recognition the show continues to receive, it was definitely a memorable debut for the filmmaker.

Accolades

Tabbar won many awards since and even before its OTT release. The show was, as you would expect, critically acclaimed. In fact, viewers went ahead and called it the most underrated show of 2021, thus proving just how much this series has connected with one-and-all.

The biggest talking point of Tabbar has to be the last scene. The show, which was also dark enough, climbs a whole new level and makes you question morality and humanity itself through that one scene. That is the kind of impact the show left on the viewers.

Ajitpal Singh filmography

Do you know that Ajitpal started his career by writing the script of Shefali Shah-Neeraj Kabi’s Once Again (Netflix)? He had made his directorial debut in a feature film with Fire In The Mountains in 2021. The filmmaker was constantly working on short film and documentaries since 2003. Tabbar marked his directorial debut in a web series.

Apart from writing and directing, Ajiptal was also a cinematographer on three projects, including the TV show MAD. He has also edited three short films which he also directed.

Ajitpal was also the assistant director on Pankaj Tripathi’s Gurgaon (2017) and Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Patang (2011).

A heartfelt gratitude, straight from the winner's heart

While receiving the award at OTTplay Awards 2022, Ajitpal said, "Thank you, thank you so much to OTTplay for this. I have been sitting there and enjoying the fact that there are so many languages, series, films which are winning the award you know and Tabbar also in a way 50% Punjabi and I am from Punjab but I also speak in Gujarati. I would like to thank my producer Ajay Rai of Sony LIV for believing in me and giving me chance to direct this series but more than anybody I would like to thank my wife Mouni Singh who is sitting there, you know so for 5 years she was the one running the house financially, economically – in every way. Thank you."

Upcoming films/web series/project

Ajitpal is yet to announce his next project. However, all the actors associated with the show have something in the pipeline. In fact, both Pavan’s next web series Shiksha Mandal and Gagan’s show College Romance season 3 are slated to release on September 16. College Romance also features Nupur Nagpal as one of the leads. She, however, does not play Gagan’s love interest on the show.

Supriya Pathak, last seen in Home Shanti, is currently filming Manohar Pandey. Ranvir Shorey, on the other hand, will be seen in Salman Khan’s Tiger 3 soon. Sahil Mehta was last seen in Akshay Kumar’s Raksha Bandhan and Paramvir Cheema is yet to sign on another project after Tabbar.