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

We often complain about how the crime genre is handled in mainstream Hindi-language cinema. Far too frequently, audiences are subjected to scenes of empty violence, or plot-heavy stories populated by cardboard cut-outs and not real people. Singh’s sentiment is directed at corrupt superiors who, in his opinion, have left Punjab in drug-fuelled, crime-infested disarray. But it may as well apply to the corner-cutting mindset that dominates our film industries, where storytellers, more often than not, are concerned more with churning stuff out than actually working on the material and making it better. Created by Gunjit Chopra, Diggi Sisodia and Sudip Sharma, Kohrra is the rare Indian crime drama that has been made with a clarity of thought, and one scene, more than any other, exemplifies its willingness to confront the truth and not avert its eyes from it.

In episode six — the final chapter of the first season — Garundi strolls into the lock-up to inform a suspect that he’s free to go. Garundi, together with Singh, has just cracked a murder case that they’d been doggedly investigating over the course of the season. An NRI man named Paul had been found with his throat slit in a field. The son of a wealthy businessman, he was days away from getting married to a woman he’d apparently met only once. Singh and Garundi were under immense pressure to solve the mystery, lest the Punjab Police once again be mocked for its inefficiency.

Their first order of business was to round up the usual suspects and put them through the ringer. Garundi gladly volunteered to do the dirty work. Over the course of the investigation, they detained a local musician, a small-time drug peddler, and a truck driver. While each of them was involved in the case in one way or another, none of them was actually responsible for Paul’s murder. And after our two cop protagonists finally got to the bottom of it, it was Garundi’s responsibility to release the suspects.

When he tells the musician Sakaar that he is free to go, he is met with howls of disbelief. Sakaar had been brutalized by Garundi not too long ago, denied of his rights, and locked up in jail despite being innocent. The camera slowly pans to the truck driver, and then the peddler, acknowledging just how easily the crime could have been pinned on any of them. And nobody would’ve questioned it. But then, Garundi does something that you never see in shows like this. With genuine regret, he apologises to Sakaar.

“Sorry yaar,” he says, as director Randeep Jha allows the scene to breathe and let the emotion at its core be felt. Sobti’s silent performance speaks volumes. Not only does he feel remorse for his careless actions, it is almost as if he is watching an alternate life flash before his eyes, a life in which he was the junkie, thrown in the pen for no fault of his own, pleading for dignity. Garundi could’ve jumped ship like so many others in Punjab, and started a new life overseas. But for a variety of reasons, he was forced to stay behind. A lot of what he does in the show, which elegantly examines the mass exodus of youth from a state devastated by drugs, stems from this frustration. How often do we see ‘issue-based’ Indian films sacrificing their characters at the altar of politics, or allowing the issue itself to become the primary theme? But Kohrra doesn’t do this. In this age of ‘copaganda’ entertainment, it dares to ask the difficult questions; questions that aren’t only limited to the reality of Punjab, but are emblematic of India as a whole. And it does this via its characters; we see the world through their eyes and experiences, and not the other way around.

“Don’t go after respectable folks, blame it all on the junkies,” Singh says disgustedly in that ‘mitti pao’ scene, before advising Garundi to not make the same mistakes that he did in his life. “In your career, you will only get three-four chances, don’t miss them,” he says. It’s one of the few moments in which the otherwise reserved Singh verbally acknowledges his mental state. Normally, the filmmakers rely almost entirely on Vicky’s grizzled face to do the talking. They aren’t afraid of lingering close-ups and long moments of silence. And the actor, who was so magnificent in Meel Patthar, brings that same haunted hopelessness to Singh here.

He looks like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders; his eyes, it seems, have seen unspeakable horrors. Solving this case correctly, and through it mending his broken relationship with his daughter, is his only shot at repentance and redemption. Unlike Garundi, who is violent only towards innocent prisoners, Singh has a history of domestic abuse. His behaviour, we are told, pushed his wife to take her own life. The show doesn’t forgive him for past sins, but it certainly takes the time-served approach to this storyline. There is a sense, however, that Garundi can still be saved; he can avoid succumbing to the toxic masculinity and generational trauma that consumed his boss. Time passes, wounds heal, the ‘kohra’, as it were, appears to lift.