The new year has just started and filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane is back with a new series. The gritty Black Warrant gives a peek into the goings-on in Tihar, considered one of the “most unforgiving” jails in India.

The series, streaming on Netflix from January 10, is based on the book Black Warrant written by Sunil Gupta and Sunetra Choudhury and chronicles Gupta’s 35 years as a jailer in the grimy corridors of Tihar, focusing on its high-profile inmates, from Charles Sobhraj to Afzal Guru. t2 caught up with Vikramaditya Motwane, Sunil Gupta and Sunetra Choudhury for an in-depth chat on their series that has Shashi Kapoor’s grandson Zahan Kapoor leading the cast in the part of Gupta.

Vikram, what is it about the book Black Warrant that you felt warranted a telling on screen?

Vikramaditya Motwane: The book is a riveting look at our modern history. There have been many interesting cultural milestones in the last 35 years and Mr Gupta (Sunil Gupta) has been a part of many of them, courtesy the decades he has spent at Tihar jail as a jailer. I thought that turning that into a series would be fun and illuminating, taking a deep-dive into something that we have never done before. I don’t recall having seen an interesting prison drama coming out of India....

That is true. Cinema has given us a lot of insight into the American prison system but the goings-on in Indian jails is always a grey area...

Vikram: Yes. We all love Shawshank Redemption, which is the gold standard of prison dramas, but we haven’t done something in that genre over here. With Black Warrant, the opportunity was there for me to say: ‘Okay, we can make an interesting prison drama.’

For someone like me who grew up in the ’80s and ’90s, it was an exciting experience... this almost voyeuristic tendency to look into the Indian jail system at the time, which is kind of a forbidden space. The book tells us what happened behind the scenes and I thought that was quite cool.

Sunil, your time as a jailer in Tihar is full of intriguing experiences, in no less measure courtesy the high-profile criminals that it housed at that time, from Charles Sobhraj to Billa-Ranga to Afzal Guru. What gave you the impetus to put it all into a book?

Sunil Gupta: I retired in 2016 and I realised that I had so many things to tell the public. A jail is a closed world, no one really knows what happens inside except the people who are in it. Whatever is told to the media via a press briefing is the only window to what happens there. But there is, of course, so much more. I thought I should speak about this reality.

I have seen many prisoners on death row, I have witnessed a lot of high-profile hangings. Through my book, my aim was to reveal what the psychology of a man is when he is about to be hanged, what kind of psyche defines those inmates who are habitual offenders. The Supreme Court and the High Court have also taken cognisance of my book and have quoted from it in judgments. My only aim with this book was that the general public should know what happens inside a prison. Through the book, I also wanted to bring forward the loopholes that we have in the system, so as to enable present jail administrators to plug the loopholes in the prison functioning if they desired so.

Sunetra, you have also written Behind Bars: Prison Tales of India’s Most Famous, in which you interviewed some high-profile inmates. Was writing Black Warrant, which shows prison life from a diametrically opposite perspective to your previous book, a natural progression?

Sunetra Choudhury: You have it spot on! I did give the other side of the story with Behind Bars. I came to know Sunil Gupta in 1999 and till he retired in 2016, journalists would keep pushing him to get information and his job was to paint a rosy picture of what was going on inside. I have seen him transition from holding that information to being willing to talk about it. For a storyteller like me, there is nothing more compelling than that.

The other aspect was that this genre is under-explored in India. Also, most people tend to glorify themselves in their memoirs. No one wants to read a story about wonderful things that people do. Those are the books that everybody writes and most people don’t read them. Here was someone who was inside Tihar jail, who was willing to talk about it like a human being, with all their weaknesses and their strengths.

This is a story of someone who is a human being and someone not trying to be a hero. There are people who are just trying to survive and Sunilji tells that story of survival in the most horrific of circumstances. This is a story from one person’s perspective, but this is also a person who doesn’t want to glorify himself. He is willing to act as a foil to everybody else’s experience. That was important. If you had someone who just wanted to show what amazing feats he did, then it wouldn’t be the kind of story that it has become. This was only possible because Sunilji wanted to be honest and that aspect has come through very well in the series.

Were there any aspects of the story that were too controversial to put into the book?

Sunetra: With this book, we didn’t really have any no-go areas. In telling this story, we go into the deepest details of what happens during a hanging. Sunilji is a man of few words and I had to dig deep. Since he has done this job for four decades, it is also a part of regular life for him. As Vikram was saying, we all have that kind of voyeuristic interest like: ‘Oh my God, you were there when Billa and Ranga were being hanged?! Can you please tell me in detail?’ As journalists, we don’t think about what will be controversial. We just look at a great story. The challenge was capturing that story and getting him to dig inside to remember whether he felt scared or nervous... or even for him to admit that it was any regular day is also so telling. Things like what do you do after a hanging... are you able to come back home and have a meal like always?

As a journalist and as the writer of this book, I knew that I just wanted to tell this story. What you see could be controversial, but I am just telling a story... the story of one person’s experiences and emotions.

Vikram, you have brought this story to a more visual and visceral medium than the written word. Were there any prickly areas you were apprehensive about?

Vikram: No. In fact, with the series, we wanted to flesh out more of what was in the book. The book covers 35 years in 200 pages. With the series, we had to figure out what to take from real life, what to fictionalise and how do you make a compelling story about this very unlikely gentleman who goes into Tihar, becomes a jailer and has this 35-year tenure there among these interesting people and situations.

What made you pick Zahan Kapoor to play Sunil Gupta? He was remarkable in Hansal Mehta’s Faraaz as the titular character...

Vikram: It was his audition. With some actors, you know within the first five seconds that they are perfect for a part. I had not seen Faraaz when he auditioned for us. I was sitting with the casting director and audition after audition was being played and when it came to Zahan, I was like: ‘This guy is perfect.’ His body language was correct and Zahan’s eyes are fantastic... he does so much talking with his eyes.

Sunil, is there a core moment or image that best sums up your 35 years in Tihar?

Sunil: I was timid when I first joined and slowly, I started fitting into the role. I started viewing the inmates as guests, I started treating them humanely, the way I would perhaps treat my family. And that really changed my perspective....

No matter what kind of crime they had committed?

Sunil: Our prison philosophy says that you hate the crime and not the criminal. Also, what a lot of people don’t realise is that the prison staff cannot carry out their daily duties without the help of the inmates. Prisoners are part of our daily routine and we treat them as family irrespective of the offense they would have been involved in.

Vikram, it has been a prolific few years for you, with Jubilee and CTRL being standouts in the streaming space. How do you look back at your career over the last year or so and in general, the kind of year that the Hindi film industry has had in the same time period?

Vikram: I am making up for lost time! (Laughs) I didn’t really direct anything during the Phantom (the production company he had co-founded) years. In the last few years, I have been fortunate to work with great writers. When you have good writers, it makes a creator/ director’s job easier. I have been able to concentrate on filmmaking without spending a lot of time on the writing job.
As far as the industry is concerned, in the theatrical world, there is a certain kind of single-screen cinema which is coming back and becoming popular. It is creating box-office numbers and that is fine. I do worry sometimes about the indie space but that is a discussion for another time. The streaming world is where we have the most diversity. It is lovely that we can have multiple kinds of series, of varying lengths and of various genres. It is a good sign, it is healthy. I think it will stay and I am happy about that.