Sudhanshu Saria: Law enforcement in a problematic place around the world

Developing the third season of Emmy-winning Delhi Crime, writer Sudhanshu Saria discusses the unbiased depiction of cops amid cases of police brutality

Last October, on an otherwise unmemorable day, director Sudhanshu Saria received a call from Film Karavan and SK Global Entertainment, the production houses behind Delhi Crime. The proposition was simple – that he writes and co-produced the third instalment of the widely acclaimed crime thriller led by Shefali Shah. “I was doing a show for Amazon Prime Video [with Nitya Mehra]. I wasn’t sure if I had the bandwidth to pull this off, but I said yes because each of the characters is fantastic. A month later, they won the [International] Emmys, and the show’s profile catapulted,” recounts Saria. In keeping with the first and the upcoming second instalments, the third edition will revolve around a real-life police case.

For now, a day in his life sees him coordinating with his team of writers over 12-hour long Zoom calls, as they develop the screenplay. With the police procedural that will be shown by Indo-American filmmaker Tanuj Chopra, Saria is walking the thin line between giving the cops their due credit, and not making them larger-than-life heroes at a time when rampant cases of police brutalities have come to the fore. “Balance is an operative word. All writing comes from conviction. Either you can spotlight everything bad that happens around us or you can model behaviour and capture the world you want to live in. The latter is the perspective that we are attempting to bring. Law enforcement is in a problematic place worldwide and with protests that followed George Floyd’s death; we saw it spearhead a movement. Any power runs the risk of becoming corrupt. We are all wondering what ideal police force looks like. We need more Vartika Chaturvedis to inspire others. The visual medium is powerful, which is why one sees a Singham or a Simmba, one worries how vigilante justice ideas will impact others. One of the relevant discussions in our writers' room is how we hold on to ideas of anti-corruption and highlight that Justice is a complicated process. There’s a lot of eyeballs on the show, and a great team of actors. It will be an opportunity wasted if we don't create a multi-layered discussion.”

Sudhanshu Saria

Saria admits that leading lady Shah’s acting prowess drew him to the project. When sitting at the writing table daily, he has a singular goal. “I want to write at least one scene, which makes an artiste of Shefali’s calibre tell herself, ‘This is challenging material. I don’t know how to do this.’ I want one scene that’s worthy of her and pushes her outside her comfort zone.”

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