Season 2 of Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankhein — in which Tahir Raj Bhasin’s Vikrant continues to play a cat-and-mouse game with his adversaries, but this time with deadlier stakes — has received positive reviews. The series that also stars Shweta Tripathi Sharma and Aanchal G. Singgh and introduces Gurmeet Choudhary in Season 2, is created and directed by Sidharth Sengupta. With the second season now streaming on Netflix, t2 chatted with Sengupta on the dark and pulpy world of the show.

Gurmeet Choudhary makes an entry this season

Was the idea always to make Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankhein darker, edgier and more thrilling, with huge stakes, in Season 2?

This is chapter 2 of Vikrant’s (Tahir Raj Bhasin) journey, but in total, the second season hasn’t crossed even 15 days after what has happened in Season 1. I felt that I really needed to increase the stakes. Every season, I think, should be a notch higher in terms of diving into the characters and the plot. There should be a change, which is pretty much there in this season of Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankhein (YKKA), although this is the same day of the story we left off at the end of Season 1. Yes, the whole idea was to make it more gritty, explore the characters a bit more and just keep you on the edge all the time.

That must have been a big challenge, especially while writing this season...

Yes, writing is the biggest challenge. I have a team — Umesh Padalkar, Varun Badola who does the dialogues (and stars as Sherpa in the series) and I also took help from Saurabh (Shukla, who plays Akheraj Awasthi). The definition of entertainment in our country is very different. It needs everything and that takes a bit of a toll on the writing.

Plus, we needed to raise the bar and that was a challenge. In long-format storytelling, to keep you hooked and to make it binge-worthy is tough. With attention spans coming down, even an extra word or extra line could distract viewers and make them reach for the remote control. One has to be aware of that and write accordingly. The good thing is that everyone on the team was very charged up. I had most of my young boys (in the crew) from the previous season.

Season 1 received a very good response. What was the standout feedback that came your way?

Every feedback stays in my heart. That is the problem! (Laughs) When we were writing Season 2, even internally, there was a lot of feedback like: ‘This has to be more gritty’, ‘times have changed, patience levels have gone down’.... Also, I had to remember that the show is essentially a love story. That was the key.

What did you have to keep in mind to make this season as binge-worthy as the first?

It is mainly the integrity of the characters, their graph of the plot, the upping of the drama.... But it has to come together organically, one cannot force it. The second season for any show is the most difficult season. The expectations are already there and you have to meet them, and yet give the audience something new.

YKKA has a linear story, it is not an anthology. We had to take it to the point which enabled us to keep increasing the stakes. In normal life, everyone’s stakes don’t increase on a daily basis, but here we had to do that. That was a big challenge.

Vikrant has a drastic change in his character graph in Season 2. From being this lover boy from a small town, he transitions to not only plotting murder but also chopping up a man’s body parts. He is, of course, a victim of fate and circumstances. How did you strike the balance between letting him go over to the dark side and yet retaining enough of him as a good man so that the viewer sympathises with him?

That is a great question. In Season 1, even till the end, he had never committed a crime. He was planning one. But in Season 2, he is in dirty waters because everything has gone wrong. He is being pushed against the wall constantly. The tricky part is that we all know that the guy has wronged, he has killed someone, but then we also have to justify it. The writing keeps justifying that he is not this guy, he wouldn’t have been a killer if he wasn’t in these extraordinary circumstances.

He is not a bad guy but to keep him as a good guy is challenging. At many points in this season, the viewer ends up feeling for Purva (played by Aanchal G. Singgh) because at least Purva is honest about her love for Vikrant and about who she is.

Vikrant, on the other hand, is pushed against the wall. He reaches Shikha’s (Shweta Tripathi Sharma) home and sees a man (Dharmesh, played by Surya Sharma) there. Vikrant is scared, and this is where we have to keep him human. But what will you do if there is a man of that stature, almost half dead, in your house? He does not know. Then someone comes and Vikrant puts his hand on Dharmesh’s face and the latter dies. Vikrant cries that he has killed a guy, but he knows there is no option other than to cut him up and dispose off the pieces.

Dharmesh is the same man who had taught Vikrant to kill. That is why we aimed at irony. We wanted to make it more ironical than have a very harsh and dark subject. It is a twisted love story... one has to be mindful not to overstep or even under step. That is why it took two years to write.

And there is a definite effort to humanise Purva this season, starting right from the first scene with her mother...

Purva is a human being. We are all human beings. We have reasons to be what we are. Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd) has a line that goes: ‘The toothless get ruthless’. Purva become ruthless for certain reasons. I wanted to explore that character, get to know her a little more.

Season 1 was only from Vikrant’s point of view. We also saw Purva from only his point of view. This season, we see Purva as being more than a girl who can twist Vikrant’s arm around. She loves her father. Being evil does not mean that she cannot love. But now we see a human side to her also. The attempt of the writing has been to make it more interesting, more human.

Are there thrillers which you are inspired by?

I am the biggest fan of (screenwriters) Salim-Javed. In the long format, I like Raj & DK’s work. I love pulp cinema. I really liked Kaminey, Yeh Saali Zindagi, Ishqiyaan, which are all twisted love stories. Recently, I liked Tribhuvan Mishra CA Topper (with Manav Kaul and Tillotama Shome). I like that kind of world.

How then did you start out by making something like Balika Vadhu?

(Laughs) I am from Delhi. I came to Mumbai but didn’t know anyone. I started with television and Balika Vadhu subsequently happened. I always had these stories in my mind, but I couldn’t tell them on television. I became a little successful in that medium and stayed on because television spoils you... it really looks after you and your family monetarily. But when I came out of television and started writing, I realised I knew very little. It was a very humbling experience.

Which is your favourite pulp thriller? Tell t2@abp.in