Sudip Sharma tells Abhishek Chaubey how they handled politics in Netflix’s Kohrra: ‘Instead of talking about the macro…’

Kohrra co-creator Sudip Sharma spoke about what drew him to the project, brought to him by Diggi Sisodia and Gunjit Chopra, and chatted with Sonchiriya director Abhishek Chaubey about dealing with the politics of the show in an intelligent manner.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | Updated: July 19, 2023 03:46 PM IST

4 min read

Sudip Sharma on the set of Netflix's Kohrra.

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Sudip Sharma, the co-creator of Netflix’s acclaimed new series Kohrra, spoke about how he became attached to the project in a conversation with director Abhishek Chaubey. The two filmmakers collaborated on films such as Udta Punjab and Sonchiriya, before switching to streaming.

In a chat hosted by Netflix India for Indian Express, Sharma said that the project came to him during the pandemic from creators Gunjit Chopra and Diggi Sisodia, and that his deal was that he would merely mentor them, and contribute to the last draft. Sharma said that he was apprehensive about doing ‘another crime show’ after Paatal Lok, but soon realised that Kohrra wasn’t actually a crime show at all. “It was really about these relationships and these characters, and their lives. That got me hooked. Although it’s got the peg of a crime show, it’s actually a lot more than that,” he said, adding, “I wondered if I could showrun something did not come from me… But by the end of it, I felt it’s possible to own it… It was a bit of a transition for me, but I’m glad I went through it.”

Also read | Kohrra: Netflix’s engrossing new show asks questions that most Indian crime dramas avoid, and one scene captures why it’s a cut above the rest

Watch the full conversation between Sharma and Chaubey here:

Chaubey noted that the themes of Kohrra are ‘inextricably linked’ to the characters themselves, which he described as one of the ‘rare achievements of the show’. Kohrra, starring Suvinder Vicky and Barun Sobti as two Punjab Police officers investigating the murder of an NRI man, was directed by Randeep Jha. Sharma continued, “For me, the difficult part was to take a step back and say, okay, I’m just going to mentor it, and not do the actual writing myself… If you were to be on a set where somebody else is directing for you, even you would have that urge to say, you know what, I’m going to call the shots here. It was a tricky thing, but they were very good. My deal with them was, I’ll do the last draft, because if I have to be on the set, and be 100% sure of the material, be 100% sure of why this beat is here, I need to do that final pass where I rewrite it in my way.”

Sharma also spoke about how he addressed political themes in the show, without really speaking directly about anyone or any situation in particular. He told Chaubey, “Our work is inherently political, right? We have done political stuff together. And by political, I don’t mean about politics, but about the socio-politics of it, right? For Kohrra, what we did was, let us drill down the politics of it. Let us, instead of talking about the macro of it, let’s talk about the micro of it, and talk about the politics of the family. You go down to that, and maybe, in that, you can tell a larger story.”

Released on Saturday on Netflix, Kohrra also stars Harleen Sethi, Manish Chaudhri and Varun Badola. The show has been appreciated for its writing, its unglamorous depiction of real-world issues, and the performances of Vicky and Sobti.

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