P.I. Meena creator Arindam Mitra talks about his Amazon Prime Video show based on a young woman private investigator wanting to make a mark in the world, his favourite authors and how he sees Kolkata.
It is one thing to write something based on your life experiences and altogether a different thing when you write something and then it happens in real life. What was your reaction to seeing the Covid pandemic happening after you had finished writing P.I. Meena?
Arindam Mitra: It was shocking. I like reading about science. It feels like science is out of control. You don’t know what will happen. Look what’s happening with AI. It is scary. The biggest conspiracy theory is that all these ailments are planted. That’s where it came from. I wrote the show, it got green-lit, and then Covid happened. It was absolutely shocking because it happened exactly the way I had written it.
What was the first idea that gave birth to P.I. Meena?
Arindam Mitra: I always wanted to do something on a PI (private investigator), maybe write a book. I did Black Friday (2007; directed by Anurag Kashyap) and it got into a lot of trouble. It took away 15-20 years of my life. I did not want to do it anymore. I was doing my own thing to earn a living. My friends and my wife pushed me back into writing. If I were to write again, I wanted to do a PI story. That’s what I read and watch all the time. I was thinking what kind of a character it might be.
In a flawed world, if you look at the younger people, they are very irritated. There’s peer pressure, social media pressure and conversations around the world coming to an end. Gen Z has a massive money problem. Even if they have money, there’s a fear of money running out. The generation is annoyed and irritable, they feel that the elders have let them down. They are non-conformists yet conformists. It’s a whole mishmash.
The character that I created was like that — someone who is not a likeable hero. You don’t fall in love with P.I. Meena because you never will and that’s not how I intended it either. For me, the character is more important than the plot. If you look at the big detective stories, you forget the plot. But you need a plot because people will come to watch the plot and stay for the character. So, that’s how it started.
How long did it take you to bring P.I. Meena from the script to the screen?
Arindam Mitra: It took a long time. The script got frozen and then Covid happened. The platform (Prime Video) really supported us. When the pandemic happened, the whole thing about the plot was gone. But then the platform came back and said, ‘Let’s stick to this.’
Because of the first wave of Covid-19, the show was delayed indefinitely. Also, we were working with busy actors, so their dates had gone all over the place. Then we started putting things together and went for the shoot. But then the second wave happened. It took us three years to put it all together.
And how many sleepless nights did you spend during these years?
Arindam Mitra: All through the three years. I am still having sleepless nights.
What are the key skills that a creator/showrunner must possess?
Arindam Mitra: A creator and a showrunner are two different jobs. The creator is thinking of the show and plays a lead role in writing. Once that is done, the showrunner takes the baton from the creator and runs the show. Some showrunners have famously said that running a show is managing a lot of egos. So, that’s what a showrunner’s job really is.
I don’t know the theories about a creator’s job but for me, it is imagining the world and characters, and deciding how the story is going to be told. Fortunately, I was the lead writer in the room, so it helped me take it forward. And even more fortunately, I was showrunning it, so I tried to keep as much vision intact as possible. I don’t think that we achieved a hundred per cent because it is impossible to achieve a hundred per cent. But for a first show made during a pandemic, that too of this size and scale, we have achieved quite a bit.
I saw a different Kolkata in P.I. Meena. How did you intend to use the city as a character?
Arindam Mitra: Two cities dear to me are Bombay and Kolkata. My love letter to Bombay was Black Friday. And to Kolkata, it is probably P.I. Meena. I have not lived in Kolkata for many years. I have been living in Bombay for 26 years. So, when I go back to Kolkata, I see the city differently than someone who lives there every day. That’s how it is reflected in the show.
The city, however, plays a large role. People will kill me for saying this but there is a sense of sadness in the city. I sense it whenever I go back; probably because only the elderly in the families are there and the youngsters have flown away. I think that has crept into the show.
The other Kolkata that I have fought for and retained, though it is being trashed by everyone, is the character of Subho Roy (Parambrata Chattopadhyay). He is an anarchist. That’s the bright side of Kolkata for me and with Subho I play that anarchist card. It has got nothing to do with the narrative and that’s why it has been trashed by the critics. The platform went with my vision and I am very thankful to them.
When you talk about a city, you don’t necessarily talk about images. You talk about that ‘one thing’ about the city and that’s why Subho is so important to me. If I get a chance to do one more season, that anarchist will be taken forward.
You always had Parambrata Chattopadhyay in your mind in the role of Subho?
Arindam Mitra: I had Param in mind because I know the real Param. I know that in his head, he is an anarchist. He might kill me for saying this. But he is quintessential Kolkata — his passion for what he does.
And what about Tanya Maniktala made you cast her as P.I. Meenakshi Iyer?
Arindam Mitra: Frankly, we were looking for many actors for the part. All the usual suspects were being talked about. Tanya Maniktala was suggested by the platform. She was shooting something in Kolkata. The first thing that attracted me and director Debaloy Bhattacharya were her eyes.
We had a meeting and I realised that this girl had something in her. She is well-read, so she is very quick to pick up references. She is kind of exposed to literature. If you look at her earlier roles where she plays the sweet girl, there’s something beyond that and that’s what clicked. She is very open to be moulded and I think she liked the character, so she did what she did. We are guilty of using her eyes but we have not used only her eyes.
You talked about private investigators and the city and the characters. But at the core of the show, what did you want to say through P.I. Meena?
Arindam Mitra: This young girl put against a world largely controlled by men was fascinating to me; maybe because I have a 20-year-old daughter. I want her to grow up and become something. Maybe through P.I. Meena, I am trying to tell her that this is what I want you to be, I don’t know.
My wife and I went to school together. I have seen the way she has conducted herself in life. I think it is this girl thing that both my wife and I have. We want girls to succeed in this world. Maybe that is what it is, I don’t know for sure. What does a young girl do in today’s world if she is up against all kinds of odds? This is what P.I. Meena probably is.
I have worked hard on two things. One, I have been very conscious that there’s no male gaze on this character. The second thing is that Meena is a girl. She is not the man in a girl’s costume. The trashing that the show has got [from critics] is around that factor. We don’t want to accept a girl as a girl. In terms of audiences’ reaction, the show is doing really well. The show opened at No. 1 on Prime Video and it stayed at No. 1.
Let’s conclude on a lighter note. What kinds of films/shows do you watch?
Arindam Mitra: Books and cinema are the two things I love the most. Though I dig crime, I also love drama and love stories. I read all kinds of things. My favourite writer is Gabriel Garia Marquez. Magic realism and Latin American literature is what I am deeply involved in. I read crime almost as an education because it helps you write. It teaches you plotting and character. I watch all kinds of cinema and read books. That’s my life. My favourite PI works are by writer Robert B. Parker. I love his pulp American writing.