Sumit Arora reveals how he crafted the language for 'Guns and Gulaabs'

Rajkummar Rao plays the wacky Paana Tipu in Guns & Gulaabs

For writer Sumit Arora, working on Guns & Gulaabs was a homecoming of sorts. He was reuniting not only with creators Raj-DK after Stree (2018) and The Family Man, but also with Stree's leading man Rajkummar Rao. But the similarities ended there, as the team wanted to create something distinct with the Netflix crime comedy.

That Rao's character Paana Tipu in Guns & Gulaabs was in stark contrast to the goofy Vicky from Stree only helped Arora write the dialogues. He breaks it down, saying, "Gulaabganj is a fictitious town. So going in, you feel that it is similar to Stree's world, but the characters are different. Vicky was a simpleton, but Paana Tipu is wacky. So, we wanted to create a unique language for him. For instance, when his friend says, ‘Aaj toh Gulaabganj mein aag barsegi', he says, ‘Aag nahin, kehar.' I remember the word ‘kehar' being used often in Meerut."

Arora follows it up with Shah Rukh Khan's Jawan. He says writing dialogues for the superstar has been a process like no other. "For Shah Rukh sir, you have to write lines that carry [gravitas]. He is humorous, so you keep that in mind too. Also, he is a terrific collaborator."