Love for Punjab and its people remains Gunjit Chopra’s prime inspiration, especially when telling the stories of his ancestral land. Co-creator and cowriter of the much acclaimed Kohrra franchise, he is equally perturbed by the state’s many shortcomings.“Punjabis are all about Charhdi kalan, but the same open spirit makes us susceptible to gun culture, crime and drugs,” he says.
Of course, like the first season, second one too is a human drama at the heart of it. Sure, it’s still a police procedural which begins as a whodunit but he hopes, “audiences soon forget it’s a murder mystery and get engrossed in personal stories of its characters.”
Barun Sobti reprises his role of Jasjit Garundi, but Suvinder Vicky, who became a breakout star with Kohrra, is not part of the cast. Gunjit explains, “The problem is never with the actor, we all love Suvinder paaji. The fact is we have said whatever we could about his character Balbir, dealt with his demons, while Garundi’s past is still unresolved.”
“The challenge of sophomore season always is freshness,” he admits. For the touch of novelty, among the new entrants, there is Mona Singh as sub-inspector Dhanwant Kaur. On casting the talented actor, who is really out there in movies like Border 2, he says, “It is heartening that she is doing so much good work, but we have not seen her in a part like this, talking in Punjabi. Her character arc is truly heart-breaking and would touch a chord with viewers.”
On the fact that all three writers, Diggi Sisodia, Sudip Sharma also the director and he are male, he smiles, “That’s true but we have tried to do justice to this female protagonist of ours. Besides, we have many women in our crew who read the script.”
Unlike the first season, whose germ came from the Korean movie Memories of Murder, this time the trigger is Punjab and Punjab alone. Since, he feels, “NRI dimension is imbedded in our DNA,” the migrant angle can’t be wished away. He adds, “Majority of our stars, actors, singers don’t live in Punjab. Most people of our Doaba belt are not in Punjab.”
The series is set in Majha region and they shot in Amritsar and Gurdaspur, border areas, for that is integral to their story. At this point, the series streams on Netflix on February 11, he can’t reveal much about the plot except, “It’s quintessentially about love and loss, of how love chains us and can be unchained.”
Undeniably, the series will unfurl many burning concerns, especially crime and migration, and could trigger many conversations. However, it isn’t as if he and his cowriters set out to pick up cudgels and write an issue-based drama. Nor did he let the weight of expectations bog him down. He quips, “It was not like I decided; let me write a second season of a successful show.” Certainly, the first season was a sure-fire winner sweeping many OTT awards and he feels that the second outing is more mature, more intense and would receive more love from audiences.
For him working on Kohrra2 has been a quest to make sense of Punjab whose strong suits rest in its religion, community service, culture and ‘never say die’ spirit despite having seen so much bloodshed. In Kohrra 2, you would also meet characters like these police officials, trying to do good. He agrees, “Police procedurals are dime a dozen and though crime as a genre will never cease to fascinate both writers and viewers, same kind of crime dramas could press the fatigue button.”
But, he would continue to tell more and more stories from Punjab. On the anvil, apart from a documentary on the late singing sensation Amar Singh Chamkila is one on lyricist Chattar Singh Parwana, who passed away in 2024.
As he decodes many facets of his beloved state, he lifts the kohrra (fog) so we can see the state more lucidly, in all its beauty and complexities.