'Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein' director Sidharth Sengupta: ‘I am an impatient viewer'

Even after 20 years in the television industry writerdirector Sidharth Sengupta often feels like he doesnrsquot know enough about the craft This feeling of humility he says pushes him to do better The result In 2021 he delivered a sleeper hit in Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein Three years on he has returned with the second season of the Tahir Raj Bhasin Shweta Tripathi and Aanchal Singghled web series In a chat with midday Sengupta discusses why it took him three years to craft the next season and how he maintains objectivity in his writingEdited excerpts from the interviewWhy did it take you three years to return with the second season of Yeh Kaali Kaali AnkheinThe second season was a little more difficult to write I wrote various versions but was not happy I was ashamed that it took so long There was a lot of to and fro I was not enjoying some of the versions or some drafts were brilliant but were high on budget or impractical When I started writing this I had to think where am I ending this So by the end of collaborative effort and with a lot of feedback we finally came to this versionSidharth SenguptaHow do you know a certain draft is the right balance of romance intrigue and twistsThere is no certain way to know that I remember sitting with Varun Badola writeractor where we thought it was a great episode but halfway through we both got bored So you keep discovering as you write The idea is that you shouldnrsquot get bored Irsquom an impatient viewer and filmmaker I get bored very soon If you donrsquot catch my attention in the first 30 seconds Irsquoll get bored That is something I practice in my writing alsoFor a person who gets bored so easily how did you survive the pace of television for 20 yearsWhile I was working in television for 20 years I had these stories in my mind and no outlet for them TV is a writerrsquos medium When I stepped out of the TV industry I realised I did not know anything This is after 20 years of winning a lot of awards When I started writing I realised itrsquos such a beautiful art that it keeps reminding you that you donrsquot know anything and keeps humbling you That pushes me to explore a lot of thingsHow do you ensure that you donrsquot fall in love with your work so much that you donrsquot see the flawsFirstly Irsquom not in love with my work actually I hate it sometimes Then I have Umesh Padalkar and Saurabh Shukla who keep reminding me that I have to be objective about the script I push myself in writing and then I run to them saying I screwed up somehow They are both great writerdirectors I keep taking their help we write together They keep me in check ki main zyaada na phail jaauDid you feel the pressure of making the second season after the first editionrsquos successI kept the pressure away from my head I didnrsquot even know that my show had become a hit I just keep doing whatever I can The good part is that everyone at Netflix has always been supportive There were times when I wondered if it would work or not but they were confident so was my team They all believed in me Irsquom not a writer by profession I started writing very late in my life So for me itrsquos a hit and miss Thatrsquos why it takes a little more timeThe second season seems gorier than the first especially with the body hacking scenesThe stakes have to go higher in the second season A boy has committed a crime so he has to face the consequencesDo you practise selfcensorship when making the projectI do but sometimes we need to go a little beyond I had to put the hacking scene because you are seeing an ordinary man doing something so heinous His ethos or ordinariness has to go out Having said that Irsquom not too fond of gore unless itrsquos needed in the story But there are no sex scenes which has become a lot on OTT shows these daysWhat made you cast Gurmeet Choudhary this seasonWhen I was looking for this character he fit the bill I wanted somebody who could pull off action as well as drama The team had a discussion and was charged to have him on board My cast is very passionate and I wanted somebody equally passionate He shouldnrsquot be a dharti pe bhoj on the set laughs