With Season 3 of Delhi Crime now streaming on Netflix, t2 caught up with director Tanuj Chopra and actors Rasika Dugal, Rajesh Tailang and Sayani Gupta for a chat on their much-loved series.
Tanuj, is there a reason why every Delhi Crime season takes place in winter?
Tanuj Chopra: That is a fantastic question! No one has ever asked us this. With every season, I have intended to shoot in the spring so that we have a different look. That has been the idea every time in the development and writing cycle, but we eventually end up shooting in winter. There are some advantages to shooting in winter, of course, because it forms a natural filter and contributes to the atmospherics. Shooting in winter is also much more bearable... filming this project in July-August would be murder on the crew. But yes, I have been dying to do the khaki look (the summer uniform) for these cops for a long time now.
Rasika Dugal: For Season 2, we did patchwork (shoot) in Mumbai in October, wearing sweaters and scarves... and it was not the most fun experience! (Laughs) Honestly, all these years, I had thought they wanted to shoot it specifically in winter because of the whole gloom-and-doom feel.
Sayani, you are the new entrant in Season 3. What was it like getting into a much-loved series like Delhi Crime? Have you been a fan?
Sayani Gupta: I have not watched Delhi Crime! (Laughs) I couldn’t watch the first season (based on the 2012 Delhi gangrape) because I felt it would be too triggering. But whoever I met after Delhi Crime came out, and also over the years, has loved the show and spoken so highly about how thoroughly it is researched and how well it is made. The good thing is that all three seasons, even though the setup is more or less the same, have different cases and I will probably get to a point soon where I can watch all three seasons together. When they won the (International) Emmy, I celebrated like it was my own show.
When one comes into a show like Delhi Crime, one is aware that there is a legacy attached to it. But Tanuj gave me a lot of confidence and showed so much trust in me, saying things like: “You can do this and only you can do it.” Kusum is a character I had never played before. I had played a psycho killer once, which was quite interesting, but this character is completely different, it is a lot more fun and it is the best decision I have made in years.
Sayani just mentioned the word “legacy”. While Delhi Crime’s almost cult following is, of course, a huge high, does its legacy sit heavy on the rest of you?
Tanuj: Richie (Mehta, creator of Delhi Crime and the director of Season 1) did an amazing job in putting this world into motion. There is legacy, there is a certain pressure that comes with it, but I don’t think we can do our work or live with that hanging over us or move forward and discover new things if we are just resting on our laurels and are so excited about the past. You have to approach the work in a grounded way to achieve what we do on the show. Give me three more seasons... there is always more out there. Legacy is a big word... let’s get to it after some time.
Rajesh: Thinking about legacy affects one’s performance. I always believe in concentrating on the process and not the result. Intent and content has always been my focus and I continue with that.
Rasika: On most days, I forget that there is a legacy attached to the show and, therefore, I am able to go about it without any pressure. But like most actors, I have my own pressures — what is going to happen on shoot today, how am I going to get the scene done, is it going to match up to what is scripted and expected.... Those are very real and tangible issues that come up while shooting. Legacy is not something that is at the top of my mind and, very honestly, sometimes not on my mind at all.
But again, it is nice to get reminded of it time and again. There is always a certain warmth with which the audience of Delhi Crime meets you because they have been moved a lot by what they have watched... I can almost tell that this is a “Delhi Crime viewer” because of the way they look at me. That is a reminder of the legacy of the show and how it has been able to connect with people. That always has a very warm feeling and it is the reason why we do what we do.
Tanuj, what made you pick human trafficking as the focal point of this season? Do you feel that after the first season, this is the most personal Delhi Crime outing yet?
Tanuj: It was about looking back at previous seasons and seeing what we had done and asking ourselves how can we grow from there. Season 1, as you said, was very personal and Season 2 (based on the kachha-baniyan gang, that robbed and mercilessly killed its victims) was about fear. After that, the place that both Netflix and my team felt that we could grow was in the emotional space — we wanted to see what crime can pull out more emotion from Vartika (Chaturvedi, played by Shefali Shah), and her team. We wanted to bring back a little of what the viewer felt in the first season and marry it with some of the fear of the second season, but also explore more.
The third season is not about one crime alone. Our starting point was the baby Falak case that had happened in Delhi (the two-year-old, referred to as baby Noor in this series, who was the victim of extreme physical violence). It was a case we researched very heavily and the human trafficking aspect came in from there.
One has to make sure that while every season has a real feel, it cannot be a documentary. You have to make it work for episodic viewing, cliffhangers and cold opens. This kind of crime crosses borders... it is a global issue, no matter how much we feel that it is systemic and endemic to Indian society. We have seen the Jeffrey Epstein case. When you strip out all the pieces, it is about power at the core and is something that we shouldn’t sweep under the rug....
Like this season says: “No one misses missing girls”....
Rajesh: This line and an image stayed with me... the visual of the container in which these girls, who are to be trafficked, are huddled inside and my character (Bhupendra) opens the shutter. It is stuck in my mind.
Sayani: It is a very powerful line, but I also realised that no one misses them when they are around either. Society moves along, it is constructed for everyone else, and we just happen to be living in it.
Rasika: When you have so many mouths to feed in a family, one girl going missing is one less mouth to feed and one less woman to marry off and give dowry for. Unfortunately, we are a country where women are still liabilities. Even the tiny margin of educated, urban women like us have to face so many things on a day-to-day basis. It is something we live with.
Rasika and Rajesh, how have you evolved — as actors and as people — with the evolution of your respective Delhi Crime characters on screen?
Rajesh: It has been seven years since we started shooting Delhi Crime. I started knowing my character Bhupendra and then I started understanding him... it has been a process. Bhupendra has now got used to Rajesh as much as Rajesh has got used to Bhupendra. The only difference between the two is that Bhupendra is a little more microscopic than Rajesh and goes into details a lot more than perhaps I do in life.
Rasika: I feel very attached to this role... I have grown up with Neeti over the last seven years. I have had the opportunity to shadow the same police officer every season. It has been been nice to watch her become a more confident officer... I feel very proud of her. It has also been lovely to see what Tanuj and the writers have imagined for Neeti every season in her personal and professional journey. She is now a more lived-in police officer who has understood how to work from within this system while also maintaining the integrity of her work.
For me, the most moving scenes have been about her personal life. In Season 3, Neeti has come into her own and she makes some brave choices. Like Neeti, I am also learning to work within a system and realising that the ideas I had as a film-school actor are not what work in the real world... you have to adapt to different people and setups and work within that.
The equation between Neeti, Bhupendra and Vartika is one of the most heartwarming bits of Delhi Crime. Every season, do the three of you take off from where you left?
Rajesh: It is like meeting our old friends after a long time...
Rasika: The dynamic between Vartika, Bhupi and Neeti is amazing. Everybody needs a Bhupi in their life! We don’t hang out outside of work but it is very easy to pick it up on set. There is a very warm professional relationship.
Rajesh and I work together on another long-running series also, but in that, we don’t have any scenes together. But whenever we meet on that set, I still end up calling him Bhupi!
Which is your favourite character from Delhi Crime and why?
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