If you analyze the filmography of Sudip Sharma, the creator of the series Kohrra, who co-wrote and co-directed the second season, you will notice an impeccable way of crafting a screenplay that is vast and character-rich. And every subplot somewhere takes you into certain disturbing realities that the mainstream doesn’t dare to go into. And he does that with a flair that makes it remarkably engaging. Be it NH10, Sonchiriya, Pataal Lok, or Kohrra, the emotional heft he manages to create by the end is unique. The lack of genericness in his writing is so good that he has become one of the few hopeful creative minds who won’t comply with the demands of the algorithm. Kohrra season 2 is doing justice to the kind of stuff we saw in the first season. However, this time, they have managed to broaden the scope of the emotional impact.
Amarpal Garundi has moved out of his hometown, and he is now in Dalerpura with his wife. His senior officer is SI Dhanwant Kaur, who has joined the force after a sabbatical. They both get assigned for the investigation of the murder of Preeti Bajwa, who was found dead in her house premises. What Dhanwant and Garundi uncover through the course of this investigation is what we see in Kohrra Season 2.
The way several things have been normalized in our society and how that has become a foundation for many gruesome crimes has mostly been the driving force behind most of Sudip Sharma’s scripts. When we realize what the characters have gone through in those creations, be it the story of Alia Bhatt’s character in Udta Punjab, the backstory of Hathoda Tyagi in Paatal Lok, or the reality of the female lead in Sonchiriya, there is that sigh of pure disbelief coming out of us. Written by Gunjit Chopra, Diggi Sisodia, along with Sudip Sharma, the second season of Kohrra knows that it needs to deliver something beyond a mere whodunit. And for that, it pushes the story idea to a why, and the result is something that would make you think about the realities of several people we ignore.
Thematic repetitions are there in the story, like the moving-on angle in Dhanwanth’s story or the extension of the problematic equation Garundi has with his sister-in-law. But the good thing is that those tracks are not added as some routine subplot. They are helping the main plot by shaping the characters. The real moments of creative high in this series come in the way it creates those seemingly small characters. If you take the character of Pamma in this series, he is like a different version of Hathoda Tyagi. He is unlikable, insanely loyal, and most importantly, a creation of a flawed system. The backstories of the characters in the suspect list have a peculiar nature. Like the villain of one person’s story would be the victim in another track. And the creative beauty of exploring such grey spaces is that when the series sustains silences in certain key moments, like the labor room sequence towards the end, we feel that the series is asking us what will be your stand? Whom would you support? And the answer isn’t easy at all.
The real masterfulness of the script comes when it goes beyond the “who” of the crime. Almost by the fifth episode, we might get an idea about a particular character who has been a mystery. And the way the screenplay pushes it to the why and how of that crime is stunning. Home being a trigger word, the idea of a man equating a chain with freedom, and the inhuman denial of the upper class, who are conditioned to believe that they are entitled, are all making the final episode a collection of unsettling moments. The writing has this method of throwing leads to multiple past events at random points in the initial episodes and then showing those moments at the beginning of each episode. There are these subtle ways of showing the journey of characters through frames. The relationship of Garundi and his wife transitions from being in different blocks of a window frame to finally both of them being inside one single frame.
Barun Sobti reprises his role from the first season as Amarpal Garundi. The roughness of a slightly ignorant police officer who needs to be reminded about basic things like taking a female police officer with him while questioning a woman is still there with that character. While he is performing well in those emotional bits, in the personal track of that character, I enjoyed the louder reactions of his character during the investigation, which were hilarious. Mona Singh is the new entry here as SI Dhanwanth. Much like Balbir Singh, Dhanwanth also has issues she needs to fix that have to do with her family. The character’s reaction pace evolves gradually as the investigation progresses, and Mona was able to internalize it realistically. Anurag Arora as Baljinder was impressive, and there is a moment in the series where the shot stays on him to let the character realize the gravity of the crime he has committed. Prayrak Mehta as Arun Kumar and Satyakam Anand are just fabulous in their roles. With minimal dialogue and screentime, they both managed to create a lasting impact through their performances.
Kohrra Season 2 borrows the emotional beats from the first season and creates something that truly feels a bit more nuanced and elaborate than the first part. In terms of the number of characters that leave an impact on us, I would say it almost matches season 1 of Paatal Lok. With each subplot dealing with this messy and corrupted space of love and money, Kohrra Season 2 is an intriguing and compelling mixture of human drama and investigative thriller.
