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Raj & DK on 'The Family Man' 3: The Plot of Our Show is Pure Fiction
As the popular spy series reports to duty, creators Raj & DK talk about the delicate art of baking geopolitics into a high-stakes narrative
What makes The Family Man fun? There is, at the heart of it, Srikant Tiwari, the wiry and out-of-wind spy played by Manoj Bajpayee, a model of reasoning heroism and on-the-go wit, in his untucked shirts and aviators, forever juggling home and the world. Then there's the cast of endearing characters creators Raj & DK surround him with: Sharib Hashmi's JK, Priyamani's Suchitra and the kids.
But there is a third, equally essential layer that lends the comic series its edge: geopolitics. In its previous two seasons, the Prime Video India series has tackled terrorism and national security, talking about Pakistan, Kashmir and Sri Lanka. Its latest season—releasing on November 21 and arriving after a gap of four years—sets up camp in northeast India. Of course, the big bad looming across the border is China, depicted in the opening episode as both an uneasy trade ally and a territorial threat.
It's a more delicate and ambiguous space to delve into than a straightforward Indo-Pak narrative. "One has to be very, very careful when talking about Indo-China relations and not sensationalise it," avows DK. He has co-written the third season with Raj, Suman Kumar, Sumit Arora and Sudhish Kamath.
He adds, "Suman, our lead writer, is quite knowledgeable and clued in about the subject matter. We want to be authentic and address it as accurately as possible in the ongoing situation. But the plot that we have built on top of it is pure fiction."
There's a refrain in The Family Man writers' room, DK says, that whatever they concoct resonates uncomfortably in the near future (this interview took place in the week of the Delhi Red Fort area blast; season one tracked a terrorist plot in the national capital).
"Maybe we should write good stuff," he observes grimly.
Raj says a complex and engaging series cannot traffic in binaries. "It's easy to vilify a person, a place, a department, a country. As storytellers, we avoid being judgmental towards our characters. There's always a balance."
In addition to Jaideep Ahlawat—who plays a mercenary and drug lord named Rukma—Season 3 introduces another new antagonist, Meera, a London-based powerbroker in a trench coat and high heels played by Nimrat Kaur. "I'm the one who runs this circus," she says cryptically in the trailer.
"Meera is a mastermind, strategising the chaos that is going to unfold," Kaur shares. "This is the first time I had to check my feminine instincts and look at situations with a ruthless, unrepentant gaze. She is everything the audience has not seen in this genre in India."