Kohrra 2

Writer-director Sudip Sharma had opened up a new world when he created the procedural drama Kohrra in 2023. The web series, mostly in Punjabi, unusually showcased the state of Punjab, sans all the bonhomie and colour that films often associate the state with. Much like its plot, a murder mystery, the drama had muted colours, with heavy fog shrouding the lives of those involved in the case. Sharma returns with Kohrra season 2, with a new mystery and a new set of complications, but keeps the same aesthetics and mood of the first season. Just like the first season, a heavy fog remains on the lives of the police officers investigating the case, the identity of the killer, the victim’s family and societal prejudices.

Like its title, Punjab nebulously creeps up on you in the new season of Kohrra. This is not the bhangra-dancing, balle-balle boisterousness that almost every depiction of the state has been weighed down with, but a Punjab that feels real and lived-in; where secrets lurk in the shadowy cul-de-sacs and conspiracies are hatched in dilapidated local bars. It is a Punjab where generational trauma is a byproduct of gender bias, and vice versa. A Punjab where humour resides not in the backslapping, jokey way we are accustomed to expecting, but arises out of everyday situations which may (or may not) naturally lend themselves to it.

The melancholy crime drama Kohrra is back after nearly three years, minus one of its lead actors. While Suvinder Vicky’s Sub-inspector Balbir Singh is missed, he is replaced by the more than worthy Mona Singh as Dhanwant Kaur. And, of course, the excellent Barun Sobti returns as Assistant Sub-Inspector Amarpal Garundi. This time, the character is transferred to Dalerpura, where they investigate a new NRI murder, with dark secrets uncovering another family tragedy. Creators and writers Gunjit Chopra, Diggi Sisodia, and Sudip Sharma have crafted another complex character study that will linger long after the series is watched.

There is no dearth of slow-burning crime dramas in India. Every other show is a gloomy police procedural with an identical template: one gory case, two mismatched detectives, personal lives that reflect the subtext of the whodunit, and an investigation that doubles up as the postmortem of a country. The anticipation of the twist becomes its own cat-and-mouse game between the film-makers and the audience. The genre fatigue is real; it’s easier to blend into this fog of atmospheric puzzles than stand out. But Kohrra 2, much like Kohrra (2023), manages to do both at once. You sense the genre was invented for stories like these — stories where even the red herrings are just as socially valid as the reveal; stories where every detour supplies different shades of truth; stories where a place unfolds as an accumulation of time and not an isolated setting; stories where noir is nothing but reality persevering. It’s exceptionally staged, performed and written: a masterclass in suspense as a subset of cultural curiosity rather than narrative momentum. Its one-hour-long finale is close to television perfection. And it trusts the oppression of blending in over the tragedy of standing out.