It was 7.54am in the United States when we called Ritabhari Chakraborty. Her morning voice was soft on the line, but her mind was sharp as ever. What was meant to be a neat conversation about Karma Korma unfurled instead into a slow, delicious chat about instinct, chaos, curation, and characters who don’t play by audience rules. “Like-minded people who want to work on the next level are rare,” she says instantly. There is no complaint in her tone, just a fact. “People are always calculating what audiences want. Only a few like Pratim D. Gupta (director) hold the courage to create something without that calculation — to build a niche even before there is an audience.”

It is said with admiration, and with relief. Their collaboration finally found its home in Karma Korma — a project that took years of wanting, shortlisting, abandoning, and returning.
“When he brought Shahana to me, he said that I’m constantly cast in roles that are psychologically layered, tragic, and deglamourised. Shahana, finally, was someone I didn’t have to enter. She already lives close to me and I couldn’t agree more!”

In Karma Korma, Ritabhari and Sohini Sarkar’s characters meet at a cooking class — a chance encounter over burnt custard and coriander confusion — and their unlikely friendship slowly becomes the spine of the story. It’s a tale of shared silences, late-night chats, and secrets marinated in saffron and grief. It’s about women who choose each other over their circumstances. Over karma. Over korma.

Layered role

How does one introduce Shahana? Ritabhari tries, and then laughs: “You might think she is the fire, but she is the dragon blowing out the fire.” She describes her as a curious cocktail — a little bit of Puja (Pooh) from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, a little Gayatri Devi in her regal stillness, and then the uncanny energy of someone who can walk into a room and bend its oxygen.

“My character knows how to wear a storm and smile. She’s stylish, self-assured, and carries her own secrets. In many ways, she’s very close to how I dress in real life, which is why we’ve used a lot of my personal jewellery and outfits for the role — honestly, Shahana and I have very similar style. I’ve played a lot of emotionally intense, unstable characters lately, so this feels like a refreshing shift. Shahana loves to dress up; there’s flair and mystery in her, but also something deeply grounded. Pratim and I had spoken about collaborating for a while, and I’m so glad it has finally happened — and with a story I genuinely love,” she said. “Stylish, eccentric, and dangerous — in the best way.”

“People have asked me if it’s like Darlings, but it is very different,” she clarifies. “Shahana creates ruckus, she haunts without being ghostly, she is dramatic, fiercely feminine, and extremely real.” Nothing about her needs justification. She is a soft laugh with a knife behind its perfume, and entirely her own weather system.

Gifts & Girls

Ritabhari lights up when she speaks of her sets not as work zones but as small celebrations. “I am huge on gift-giving. Proper, curated, thought-out gifts. Abirda (Chatterjee) has spoken about it often — he has worn things I gifted him on set, and I feel genuinely happy when that happens.” With Sohini Sarkar, the ritual was especially tender. The two go back to Ogo Bodhu Shundori (2010), and reunion demanded delight. She remembers putting together a hamper with the kind of affection that feels handwritten — a rare white chocolate Sohini had once mentioned craving, tiny things that carry memory rather than price tag, and the pièce de résistance: matching chequered skirts.

“We fully intended to recreate The Shining sisters, given the deliciously eerie spirit of Karma Korma,” she laughs. “The photo still hasn’t happened — but when it finally does, it’s going to be iconic.” It is not a brag but a fondness — a reminder that work travels better when joy is packed first.

Thrill, Served Hot

Which Bengali can possibly resist a winter thriller? The inheritance is unquestionable and almost ceremonial — Feluda in woollen jumpers solving clues over chai and samosa crumbs, Byomkesh wrapped in a shawl as if intellect needs insulation, detective specials devoured on balconies, Agatha Christie tucked into holiday suitcases bound for Darjeeling, and crossword puzzles that lasted longer than lunch and patience. Mysteries, for Bengalis, are not a genre; they are weather. They belong to fog-heavy afternoons and quilt-wrapped evenings, to the slanted December sunlight that exposes secrets simply by falling on them.

“Karma Korma is exactly that, a thriller meant to be consumed with blankets, warm food, and a slightly wicked smile.” She leans into that image, almost amused by her own certainty. “You may not relate to the murderous impulse,” she adds, “But women will absolutely relate to the feeling — that low, simmering temperature of rage we’re taught to decorate rather than express.”

It’s not a confession so much as an acknowledgement, bright and unflinching. There is no gloom in her tone, only a glittering kind of clarity. “A woman wronged is not a trope, she is literature, she is legacy, she is myth kept alive in every household where women have always been expected to apologise for their fire.” And perhaps that is where Karma Korma slips into its own genre — neither satire nor horror, neither purely thriller nor domestic noir, but a winter entertainment that knows exactly what memory it is tapping into.

“This isn’t darkness for the sake of darkness,” she continues. “Pratim balances tone so beautifully. It’s sharp, unsettling, stylish — but always human. Nothing gratuitous, nothing that feels forced just to shock. It feels like the mysteries we grew up with. The ones we borrowed, dog-eared, argued over. The ones we watched our parents solve faster than us.” Here, Bengali nostalgia meets Bengali appetite: crime as comfort, suspense as ritual. And Karma Korma, in all its winter bite and psychological humour, simply extends the tradition — passing the torch from Feluda’s overcoat pocket to today’s darkly comic female protagonist who refuses to behave, apologise, or soften. Shahana is not a villain. Not a victim. Simply, and finally, the plot.

On Set & In Sync

Though Ritabhari and Ritwick share only a couple of scenes, the set became a mutual viewing gallery — actors watching actors, rhythm forming without dialogue. “Being on the same set, you get to see each other work. It becomes a quiet kind of collaboration.” As for Pratim, his strength, she notes, is equilibrium. “He balances tonalities so well. He doesn’t bend to ease or trend. He holds his ground, and because of that, everyone else gets to fly.”

Final Bite

Heat. Hunger. Mystery. Womanhood. Winter. None of it is gentle, but all of it is precise. “Calcutta enjoys a good mystery,” she says before signing off. “This one will sit in your bones like December.” And just before her morning run in UCLA calls her away, she adds one last spoonful of mischief: “It’s not just a thriller — it’s the bite after the flavour.” The line lingers long after the call ends. Not unlike Shahana.