Kohrra 2

Screenwriter, showrunner, and now co-director of Kohrra S02, Sudip Sharma has mastered the art of writing loud silences on page. Like Garundi (a scene-stealing Barun Sobti) bumping into his brother, Jung (Pardeep Singh Cheema) at his sister-in-law’s baby shower, and offering him a drink. Everyone except Garundi is able to read the room here. In the first season, the low-level cop is shown to be groomed by his sister-in-law, Rajji (Ekta Sodhi). Jung (shown to be impotent earlier) knows this child isn’t his — and even though he’s aware of his wife’s transgressions, he can’t seem to look it in the eye anymore. Jung tells his brother he wants to go to a Gurudwara and offer ‘seva’ (service) to the almighty. Jung is clearly perturbed by Garundi’s presence, but is too consumed by his own shame to address it. Similarly, a few scenes later, a heavily pregnant Rajji is living with Garundi and his wife, Silky (Muskan Arora), battling morning sickness. Garundi helps her stand upright in front of a sink; their sudden proximity only dawns on both once Silky enters the scene and interrupts it.

Preet Bajwa is found dead on her family’s poultry farm. Cops Dhanwant Kaur and Amritpal Garundi soon discover the family has been hiding a dark secret for twenty years: they were keeping people as slaves. As the police get closer to the truth, the family takes desperate, violent steps to hide their crimes. The story shows how old secrets eventually catch up to people and destroy their lives.

There has always been a gap between the Punjab we watch on screen and the one we actually experience off-screen. Of late, there has been an attempt to look beyond the lavish weddings, bhangra beats, and bucolic humour. Carrying forward the Maachis that Gulzar lit in 1996 and Gurvinder Singh nurtured over the years, Sudeep Sharma’s Kohrra is one such significant attempt to pierce through the miasma that hangs over the mustard fields.

When ‘Kohrra’ came in 2023, it was a breath of fresh air which not only put a majorly Punjabi language series on the world map of OTT, but showed a state dipped in shades of realism. Now, as its second season streams, the template is kind of… same. It’s still a police procedural with loads of human drama at the centre of it. ‘Kohrra 2’ starts on a similar note: murder of an NRI. But, hereafter, the series — again set in the hinterland of Punjab — takes a life of its own and envelops you as much in the mysterious air of whodunit as the lives of its protagonists. Investigation begins and we are all agog to know who has murdered this young lady Preet (Pooja Bhamrrah), a divorcee who loved to make reels and by no stretch of imagination was a pushover.

पर्दे पर मर्डर मिस्ट्री की बहुत कम ऐसी कहानियां होती हैं, जहां कुछ वक्त के बाद आपका ध्यान, खूनी कौन था? खून किसने किया‌? यह सोचने के बजाय किरदारों की जिंदगी, उनके दुख, उलझनों और जटिलताओं में रम जाए। वेब सीरीज ‘कोहरा’ की यही खासियत है कि इसमें सिर्फ अपराध ही नहीं, हर किरदार की जिंदगी और रिश्तों पर पड़ी धुंध भी धीरे-धीरे छंटती है। इसी के कारण ठेठ पंजाब की पृष्ठभूमि में रचा-बसा यह पुलिसिया इन्वेस्टिगेटिव क्राइम ड्रामा का पहला सीजन खूब पसंद किया गया था। अब इसका दूसरा सीजन ‘कोहरा 2’ आया है, जिसमें इन्हीं मूल एलिमेंट्स के बीच गुनाह की एक नई गुत्थी सुलझाई जाती है।

It is not unusual for a good show to be renewed for a new season. What is unusual, however, is for the merit to be inherited, the voice to be sharpened, and the new work to feel like an organic extension and a distinct entity. One that occupies familiar space and yet grows new legs. Few showrunners in the Indian streaming landscape do it like Sudip Sharma. The sophomore season of Paatal Lok (2025), a structurally nuanced follow-up to a still-alive series, was an early example, and the new edition of Kohrra, marking his directorial debut, reiterates it.

It was always going to be a tough act to follow. Kohrra, out in 2023, was an instant classic with its multi-pronged approach, gathering up the tangled skeins of personal and political, individual and societal, and love and longing, tethering everything to a small Punjab town. The plot was specific to its time and place but universal in the way it touched upon human frailties, while giving us full-bodied characters. Created and written by Gunjit Chopra, Diggi Sisodia, and Sudip Sharma, and directed by Randeep Jha, it was a triumph, and one of the best series I’ve watched in recent times. Sadly, I can’t say the same for this new season, which I’d been waiting for.