Meet the man behind Mirzapur
Karan Anshuman speaks to TANMAYA VYAS about his latest offering, professional journey so far and more
While winter might come in April for Game of Thrones fans, for the Indian audience, this fall unveils a new series called Mirzapur.
Amazon Prime Original’s latest Indian production, directed by Gurmeet Singh and co-created by Karan Anshuman, has a star cast featuring choicest of talent with the likes of Pankaj Tripathi, Vikrant Massey, Ali Fazal, Divyenndu Sharma, Rasika Dugal, Shweta Tripathi, Sheeba Chadha, and Shriya Pilgaonkar. Karan Anshuman, the creator or in the industry lingo, a showrunner, is not new to the digital format of storytelling and in fact, has spearheaded the original content movement in Indian digital world. Karan created and directed sports drama Inside Edge starring Vivek Oberoi and Richa Chaddha, which received a tremendous response and has bagged a nomination in the Best Drama category at the International Emmy Awards. Post the phenomenal success of Inside Edge, a follow-up season was expected, which is still in the production stage. But before that comes Mirzapur.
TALE OF GUNS SANS THE ROSES
While Inside Edge was all about the murky side of the glamorous sports world, Mirzapur is a tale of guns sans any roses, set in a remote area of India. A story of two brothers who belong to the middle-class background but get sucked into the world of crime and violence, this series promises to be gritty and engaging. Karan elaborates, “The current generation living in the heartland of India, is ambitious but due to lack of opportunities face rejection. Mirzapur talks about such situation where ambition clashes with frustration for the youth. In this series, even the nicest of the characters can pull out a gun if required, hence, there is a lot of violence involved.”
DISRUPTION UNINTERRUPTED
Indian audiences are used to watch stories like Mirzapur in form of a motion picture for over a century now. However, the purists and trade pundits believe that current the current digital wave has disrupted the entertainment eco-system. Karan accepts that there is a change but doesn’t look at it in a negative manner, “Disruption is inevitable. In two hours of time frame, stories can get predictable. Whereas, with television, there has to be consistent characterization. The mid-way is webseries, as the stories are more character driven and layered adequately.”
AN ORGANIC JOURNEY
Karan was studying Computer Science, which, in his own words, ‘back-fired’. Post which, he decided to take up film-making. “It has been an organic journey. Film-making came naturally to me and I wanted to explore it. At the same time, Amazon was looking for original content in India. Therefore, it all fell into place.” When asked what fascinates him the most about film-making, he says, “Each of the story that I have created/directed has a large ensemble; minimum six to seven characters at a time and I love the whole process of setting up a world for them.” WHAT NEXT?
A prolific personality, Karan dons the hat of a writer, director, showrunner and an author too. His next will be based on his own novel, Kashmirnama and as the name suggests, it is related to the state of Kashmir. “I am clear in my head what it should be like. Let’s see, how it shapes up.” Karan has also directed a full-fledged motion picture, Bangistan, featuring Riteish Deshmukh and Pulkit Samrat. However, he is no rush to make another movie. He signs off saying, “I have a couple of ideas which can be made into two- or threehour stories, but I am yet to work on them. Honestly, I am too excited with this phase of digital medium right now to think about movies.”