Team 'Kohrra' On The New Season: Darker, Funnier, More Emotional

Suvinder Vicky as the sad, brutish Balbir was the MVP of Kohrra, one of the most acclaimed streaming shows out of India in recent years. In Sudip Sharma's bleak Netflix thriller, two Punjab cops got around solving a murder, unravelling, in the process, a tangled heap of patriarchy, buried secrets and feudal codes of honour. The series worked as a bone-dry buddy cop drama: If Garundi, played by Barun Sobti, was the Sabu-like brawn, then Balbir, with his measured ways and red turban, was the rum-smelling Chacha Chaudhary of this show.

And now he's gone.

Sharma, writing and co-creating once again with Gunjit Chopra and Diggi Sisodia, says it was a 'tough call' to cut Balbir loose. “So much of Kohrra is the personal stories of the cops," Sharma explains. "When we started writing season two, we realised we had run out of fuel for Balbir. His emotional arcs were all done, his conflicts resolved. We really did not know where to take him from here."

Was Vicky, one of the finest exports of Punjab to the Hindi mainstream, upset with the dismissal? Was Sharma nervous to break it to him? "It took that one difficult conversation I had to do with him. He was very sporting and gave us his blessings."

In the second season, Garundi, recently married, is posted in a new city called Dalerpura (the show was shot in Amritsar). He's determined to lead a quiet, uneventful life when a fresh case breaks: a woman's body in a barn, impaled on a vegetable cutter. Garundi is paired on the investigation with a female commanding officer, Dhanwant Kaur (Mona Singh). Dhanwant, of course, has her own baggage—both personal and professional—and is hardly an improvement on Balbir in the cheerfulness department (happiness, like sunshine, is a rumour in Kohrra).

"What I admire about this show is how the central case is always intertwined with the cops' personal lives," Singh says. "What happens in the main investigation also reflects on their own truths, which they are hiding."

Both Sobti and Singh had long careers on television, and are finally being rewarded with the kind of diverse, fine-grained roles they had always sought. Singh hopped comfortably from The B**ds of Bollywood last year to Happy Patel, Border 2 and now Kohrra. Sobti, meanwhile, was lovely in last year’s Raat Akeli Hai, winning a Filmfare OTT Award for Best Actor in A Comedy.

“I don’t think I would have a career today without streaming,” Sobti avows. “I feel the same,” adds Singh. “I had done everything on television and there was nothing new left to do.”

Sobti teases that Season 2 of Kohrra is darker and 'more emotional' than the first season. "It's also funnier," he remarks, talking about the several comic chases that perk up proceedings. The third episode takes a detour to Manali, Himachal Pradesh, with Garundi on the trail of a suspect. "I ran mountains and cliffs for three days in the freezing cold,” Sobti shares, exhaling audibly.

Sudip Sharma has not only co-written the new season of Kohrra but also co-directed it with Faizal Rehman. The duo were collaborators on Paatal Lok (2019-2025), the other great investigative series that Sharma has shepherded to acclaim. In recent years, politically conscious streaming creators like Sharma have had to simmer down, using allegory and hints to reflect larger realities. This somewhat burdensome quest continues with Kohrra.

"The new season goes deep into the way our nation works, especially Punjab," Sobti says. "It..." He trails off, unable to give away more (only two episodes were available for preview).

"It's like explaining sex to your children," Sharma chuckles. "What I can tell you is that we are looking at the family as the unit of our society. It's a more personal show than Pataal Lok."