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Narcos: Netflix's Homage to Pablo Escobar

I was scheduled to write about this titular personality. Pablo Escobar was world's most notorious, wanted and inhuman narco-terrorist. You need to understand the word 'narco-terrorist' here. Narco relates to Narcotics, one branch of science that studies the impact of drugs (not medicinal) on human body. Narcotics is usually associated with drugs like heroine, cocaine, meth, marijuana etc. And when a person who deals in these drugs and goes to an extent to kill someone who opposes this trade, he is called not a murderer but a 'narco-terrorist'.

Pablo Escobar hailed from the South American nation of Colombia. Two weeks prior to this write-up, I hadn't had any gumption of him. I am an Indian. Why does it matter if I hadn't heard of a gangster from South America? But today, we have got internet and thus through it, information floats. I am presently not that much occupied with my schedule, so decided to opt for a Netflix series. I have been their huge fan since the days of their first and biggest hit, 'House of Cards' and in recent times, their offerings have matched the quality of HBO's. Narcos, their latest hit and is now done with it's third season, was an automatic pick and that's where I found the legend of Pablo Escobar.

We have had Veerappan wrecking havoc in India for close to three decades in last millenium and he was a notorious contrabandist (तस्कर). Veerappan was the closest reference I had managed to find to Pablo. And Pablo too started as a small time contrabandist. He used to smuggle Cigarettes in Miami and when a chemist from Chile asked him to be his business partner in smuggling his latest product, Cocaine, Pablo consented. Pablo lived in the city of Medellin, not far from Colombian capital of Bogota and when his empire started churning out millions of dollars every week, he started a cartel named 'Medellin Cartel'.

Pablo got to live only 44 years in this world but till the time he lived, he was not a headache but a menace to all the societies which consumed his cocaine. Colombian government was at his mercy. USA tried to hunt him down for close to a decade and they succeeded only when he became very weak. Panama, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Mexico: all these nations were parts of the plot Escobar was devising. He attacked Colombian parliament when it's president openly derided Escobar's position as a drug-lord. He became a 'narco-terrorist' that day only and he was the first of his kind. He killed close to 400 Policemen a year on an average and more than 3000 in his lifetime. Thousand of civilians including young children were murdered and killed as well. Politicians were tortured, journalists were killed and many were bought. I could hardly believe that since that horror-reign of Pablo Escobar, South America and world at large had got to witness such a particular order. It was insane and very scary.

Narcos is highly recommended. The role of Escobar is played by Wagner Moura, a highly acclaimed Brazilian actor who I admire very, very much. He has been fluent in Portuguese and English but to play this role, he enrolled himself again to college for learning Spanish. Brazil is the only nation in South America that speaks Portuguese. Rest all have Spanish as their national language. That shows his dedication to his craft and in second season of the show, he has come up with a sympathetic side of Pablo Escobar. Like every human being, Pablo loved his family and whatever decision he made, his family supported it. Couple of years ago while checking the famed list of IMDb 250, I came across a film numbered 249 and it was named 'Elite Squad:The Enemy Within' and Wagner played the file of a military colonel in the film. I am a fan of him since that first sighting of him.

So as it seems, everything is smashing with Narcos. You just gotta watch it to learn an important lesson on the modern history of South America.

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