Express News Service
In Sudip Sharma’s slow-burn police procedural, Kohrra, the setting of suburban Punjab is integral. Without it, the creator admits, the series would not feel authentic. “I have always believed that if you can take a place or moment in time and replicate it anywhere else equally well, it is a story not worth telling,” he says. The gritty thriller series has all the ingredients of a Scandi-noir crime drama—an ageing cop with an honest bone and a dark secret, the amorality of NRI dreams, Punjab’s drug menace, patriarchy and generational trauma, all of which put Kohrra (released on July 15 on Netflix) a notch above any other murder-investigation serial.
So much so that many critics have hailed it as one of the best Indian shows to have come out this year. The title lives up to the mystery that starts with a corpse in a field and ends with an unexpected denouement: kohrra means fog in Hindi.
Sharma was, however, not too enthusiastic about taking up another police drama after Paatal Lok, when he was approached by writers Gunjit Chopra and Diggi Sisodia for the project. “I did not want to do another crime drama. Then I realised the potential to explore Punjab and the interpersonal relationships of the characters through a new lens,” he recalls. Part of the reason was his fascination with the land of the rivers ever since he worked in Udta Punjab (2016). Sharma’s other critically acclaimed projects include NH10 and Sonchiriya.
His guiding manual for Kohrra was American writer-poet Charles Bukowski’s collection of poems, Love is a Dog from Hell. “The poems are raw, heartbreaking and passionate. In Kohrra, we wanted to explore all of it—the good, bad and ugly sides of love. And not just the romantic kind, but also the love between a father and daughter, two brothers or a family,” explains Sharma. It helped that casting director Nikita Grover, who had worked with him on Paatal Lok, managed to bring together a set of actors who punched above their weight. Suvinder Vicky, who plays local cop Balbir Singh, has been called the ‘beating heart of Kohrra’, while Barun Sobti is perfectly cast as Amarpal Garundi, the headstrong subordinate, who often takes to grabbing people by the crotch to extract information.
A still from Kohrra
The casual violence–– physical, emotional and verbal––strewn across the show makes it real and disturbing in equal parts. “Violence is all around us. My idea was to show it the way it happens rather than to dramatise it. The latter makes it look caricaturish and takes away the edge,” Sharma points out, adding, “If there is violence in a show, it has to mean something and shine some sort of light upon the kind of people the characters are. It is such a thin line.”
Sharma, who grew up in Guwahati and completed his education in Delhi, says his approach to writing is influenced by what he watches and reads, be it 80s’ and 90s’ Bollywood or international cinema. “When you start educating yourself in an art form, a whole new world opens up,” he says.
Still basking in the success of Kohrra, Sharma is gearing up for the launch of the hugely anticipated second season of Paatal Lok. Without divulging much about the sequel, he says the shooting has been completed and release is expected sometime next year. After that, does he want to do another cop drama? “No, I think I’ve had my fill,” he says, adding that he wants to try comedy next. Considering his penchant for the intense, it will probably be dark humour.
In Sudip Sharma’s slow-burn police procedural, Kohrra, the setting of suburban Punjab is integral. Without it, the creator admits, the series would not feel authentic. “I have always believed that if you can take a place or moment in time and replicate it anywhere else equally well, it is a story not worth telling,” he says. The gritty thriller series has all the ingredients of a Scandi-noir crime drama—an ageing cop with an honest bone and a dark secret, the amorality of NRI dreams, Punjab’s drug menace, patriarchy and generational trauma, all of which put Kohrra (released on July 15 on Netflix) a notch above any other murder-investigation serial.
So much so that many critics have hailed it as one of the best Indian shows to have come out this year. The title lives up to the mystery that starts with a corpse in a field and ends with an unexpected denouement: kohrra means fog in Hindi.
Sharma was, however, not too enthusiastic about taking up another police drama after Paatal Lok, when he was approached by writers Gunjit Chopra and Diggi Sisodia for the project. “I did not want to do another crime drama. Then I realised the potential to explore Punjab and the interpersonal relationships of the characters through a new lens,” he recalls. Part of the reason was his fascination with the land of the rivers ever since he worked in Udta Punjab (2016). Sharma’s other critically acclaimed projects include NH10
and Sonchiriya. googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2′); });
His guiding manual for Kohrra was American writer-poet Charles Bukowski’s collection of poems, Love is a Dog from Hell. “The poems are raw, heartbreaking and passionate. In Kohrra, we wanted to explore all of it—the good, bad and ugly sides of love. And not just the romantic kind, but also the love between a father and daughter, two brothers or a family,” explains Sharma. It helped that casting director Nikita Grover, who had worked with him on Paatal Lok, managed to bring together a set of actors who punched above their weight. Suvinder Vicky, who plays local cop Balbir Singh, has been called the ‘beating heart of Kohrra’, while Barun Sobti is perfectly cast as Amarpal Garundi, the headstrong subordinate, who often takes to grabbing people by the crotch to extract information.
A still from Kohrra
The casual violence–– physical, emotional and verbal––strewn across the show makes it real and disturbing in equal parts. “Violence is all around us. My idea was to show it the way it happens rather than to dramatise it. The latter makes it look caricaturish and takes away the edge,” Sharma points out, adding, “If there is violence in a show, it has to mean something and shine some sort of light upon the kind of people the characters are. It is such a thin line.”
Sharma, who grew up in Guwahati and completed his education in Delhi, says his approach to writing is influenced by what he watches and reads, be it 80s’ and 90s’ Bollywood or international cinema. “When you start educating yourself in an art form, a whole new world opens up,” he says.
Still basking in the success of Kohrra, Sharma is gearing up for the launch of the hugely anticipated second season of Paatal Lok. Without divulging much about the sequel, he says the shooting has been completed and release is expected sometime next year. After that, does he want to do another cop drama? “No, I think I’ve had my fill,” he says, adding that he wants to try comedy next. Considering his penchant for the intense, it will probably be dark humour.
