Exploring the mafia queen again

A still from the series

Leave a woman in power, and you will see what she does with it. Don't take her lightly. This holds true for Habiba, played by Kritika Kamra, in Shujaat Saudagar's Bambai Meri Jaan. After the phenomenal response to the Amazon Prime Video series, viewers are eagerly waiting to catch the second season, which is touted to take it a notch higher. Habiba, Dara's (Avinash Tiwary) sister, is an innocent woman whose life takes a sharp turn. The season ends with Habiba taking over the city from her brother, who moves to Dubai. She is now the mafia queen of Bombay, laying the groundwork for an interesting new edition. "There is promise that the next season will have a lot of her. Playing a central character in this genre is so rare for female actors. I have had the opportunity to play someone I don't have much reference for," says Kamra.

The series was always imagined as a multi-season fare, shares the actor, who is keen to take on the role she has little in common with. "The next time, Dara will be in Dubai, and it will be perceptively different. It will be Habiba's Bambai. The cliffhanger was always there. Avinash and I worked backwards to choreograph our characters' camaraderie. She has a sway with her brother. He listens to every word she says. She is possessive of him. The chair on which Dara sits all season was crucial to the ending, because I had to physically embody the same enigma that Dara did," explains Kamra, adding that when they shot the sequence, both actors took turns sitting on the chair to "feel a sense of that power". "Habiba carries a gun and will shoot anyone who rubs her the wrong way. In most gangster stories, women are [portrayed as] the moral compass. Women [often] bear the consequences of the actions of the men around them, but how many times have we seen a woman whose morality is dubious? She thinks like the man of the show. It was a challenging opportunity."

It's not untrue to say that Kamra has been looking forward to the second season even before she shot the first. "I hope we get to that soon. Since I auditioned for the series, I have been looking forward to Habiba [in the] next season. The point you leave her at, you wonder what she will do next."