Season 2 of Mumbai Diaries , which focuses on the staff of Bombay General Hospital once again rising to the occasion during the deadly deluge that ravaged the city on July 26, is now streaming on Prime Video. Over a video call, t2 chatted with Parambrata Chattopadhyay, who makes an entry this season, as well as returning cast members Satyajeet Dubey and Mrunmayee Deshpande.

What’s the reception been like so far?

Mrunmayee Deshpande:

Everyone is praising the show and we are fortunate to be a part of it. People are binge-watching, talking on social media and taking time out to write comments.

Parambrata Chattopadhyay: It’s not meant to be a slow burn. It’s meant to be a relentless show that you finish at one go. From my hairdresser to random people in the gas station, that’s what I have been hearing from everyone.

Satyajeet Dubey: They are doing bottoms-up with the show! (Everyone laughs) The one thing I have been constantly hearing is that yeh jo second seasons aate hain, mostly they are not able to surpass the first season. But the way Nikkhil sir (Nikkhil Advani, director) has crafted the narrative of the second season is incredible.

As Mrunmayee said, people are writing personalised essays and talking about character graphs, the depth of the characters and the intent. That’s incredible! They are loving the camera work.

Satyajeet: A lot of female doctors are texting me saying: ‘We need a person, a friend, a lover like Ahaan (Mirza, his character) in our lives!’ There is a lot of love pouring in for Ahaan....

Satyajeet, female doctors is a very specific demographic to target!

Satyajeet: (Laughs) It’s a win-win situation for the show as well as for Ahaan. But I haven’t targeted anyone... it’s the writers.

Param, your character is complex, psychologically depraved and abusive. What was it like getting into his headspace? And I won’t even ask if he felt relatable in any way!

Param: (Laughs) I don’t think I should be saying that I related to him even in my wildest dreams. While playing any character, an actor has to at least bring himself to a platform, to a stage where, even if it is for half an hour, you might want to think like that. There are these very deep dark corners inside all of us which we do not tap into. We let good reign over evil, in very simplistic terms. But there are people who, unfortunately, are attracted more to those darker corners inside us.

Chandra dwells in those dark spaces for whatever reasons that he must have gone through as a boy. There is an interesting catch to him because in the public eye, he is a very accomplished doctor, a generous man, very well-spoken and comes across as somebody who would stand up for the rights of the right people.

There is a strange Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde situation going on within him. It’s almost clinical. I had some interesting and exciting times trying to push myself into that kind of head space, even if it was temporary. It was a bit nerve-wracking at times.

What did those “interesting and exciting times” entail?

There is this scene where Konkona (Sensharma, who plays Chandra’s estranged wife Chitra) and I are in her chamber where she says that it’s good that Chandra has changed but she’s not going back to him. I had imagined that scene to physically play out differently. I had imagined the choreography to be quite different, but Nikkhil sir wanted it very stationary... he wanted the two of us to sit down together before she gets up and tries to go out.

But I had prepared myself to get into that kind of a choreography where both of us will be standing and moving around, but instead we were very stationary and more intimate in a way.

As actors, you also become quite technical. You know that when the whole room is lit only with candles and nothing else, those candles add a certain glisten to your eyes, a little low bounce on your face. A part of you wants to get away by just using those extraneous effects and creating the desired effect, but then there’s a part in you which wants to believe in what you’re doing and believe what you’re saying. But believing in what you are doing as a negative character is not something you would want to do as a person, right? So it’s a very strange multiple personality disorder kind of a situation.

Satyajit and Mrunmayee, how did you ensure that your characters felt familiar from Season 1 but also remained fresh?

Mrunmayee: The characters were well-etched in Season 1. In Season 2, there was a proper ground for us to play on. Now we just wanted to complete that circle and also answer a few questions that were not answered in the first season. Our characters are more evolved because they are working for seven-eight months. They must have seen so many medical cases. They must have worked under Kaushik Oberoi (played by Mohit Raina). They must have saved more lives. So their experience is growing and so is their confidence.

Sujata (her character) is way more confident. She always wants to prove herself. She wants to be Dr Kaushik Oberoi one day. Her entire journey is about trying to do the right thing all the time, even if she has to fight with her seniors. That she won’t give up is what I like about her.Satyajeet: First of all, it’s the writing, of course. This is the first time I am doing a Season 2 or a sequel. So if we are evolving continuously as people, even our characters must be.

Ahaan was working in the hospital all the time but in my head, I built a backstory of where he must have been and what he was doing in the days before that. I always have a plan chalked out in my head.

I am the kind of actor who likes to break his physicality for different parts and use different tonalities in terms of voice and enunciation. When I did Season One, I just had finished this film called Prassthanam where I had played the antagonist and I was all buffed up.

I stepped in for the medical workshops for Mumbai Diaries and I was practising CPR and Nikkhil sir came and said: ‘What is this?! I don’t want John Abraham!’ I want a very innocent boy. Cut it out! And we were only a month away from starting the shoot.

So instead of giving CPR, you were smothering the person....

Param: I was thinking the same! (Laughs)Satyajeet: Fortunately, I was doing it on a dummy! We don’t create characters out of anywhere, we extract it from within. So finding those triggers within us is important. In this season, I deal the most with Param’s character, who overpowers me mentally. The way he played it really helped me because you look at Ahaan as this weak, young guy who is not able to stand his ground, and all of a sudden, he bounces back and there’s a change in him.

The majority of this season takes place in the dark or in candlelight. What was that experience like and how did that influence your performances?

Mrunmayee: Slippery floor, blood everywhere, water pouring in... the list is quite long.Satyajeet: You don’t always have to be chakachak and well-lit. But I was also skeptical about a scene with Mrunmayee. Her character comes and tells me about something that is happening in the hospital and I had to react to her. But there was no light on my face and now when I have seen the show, I realise that even though my face isn’t well lit, it’s conveying what needs to be conveyed. You just have to trust your DoP and your director, and let all those guards down that actors have.

I think that darkness was one of the primary characters in Season 2.

Param: All the characters in this season are dealing with their own demons in their respective ways. They qre all facing a tremendous exigency. That entire chaos going on all around, water dripping from everywhere, lights flickering constantly, contributes to that. It makes you feel that you really are in the eye of the storm and that generates a certain body language, response and reflex from you as a human being that helps you as an actor to react to that particular situation. If you are an and experienced actor, then you need to learn to mix that sort of immediate reflex with what your character needs to carry forward. You blend the two and that is how you reach a successful portrayal.