EXCLUSIVE! ‘Working On Mythological Content; You Should Be Ready For Criticism’, Says Asur 2 Director Oni Sen

"I was not sure how the viewers would react to a story like this, but the response was quite amazing," says director Oni Sen on the immense success of Asur and Asur 2. The first season of Asur was released in 2020 on VOOT, while the second season came out in June 2023 on Jio Cinema.

In an exclusive interview with Filmibeat, Oni Sen candidly spoke about the series, audiences' reactions, casting, how difficult it was to work on a thriller based on Hindu mythology, and much more.

Excerpts from the interview.

Q. Did you expect this kind of success when you started working on the project?

A. It is really good that everybody has liked the series. We didn't expect this actually. It's like whenever you make a sequel, and especially if the first one becomes popular, there is fear in everyone's mind about the second part. In Asur 2, I even changed the way of my storytelling. Also, it was not an easy shoot for us. We were shooting just after the second wave of COVID. So, when the responses started coming in, I think we were all very happy that all the hard work sort of paid off. Truly speaking, the expectations of the audience keep you on toes and also a little scared, which is a good thing I think.

Q. How and when you came on board for Asur?

A. When Gaurav Shukla was writing Asur Season 1, he had sort of thought of this. He wrote few episodes and that's when he had reached out to me. He is my friend even before we started on Asur. Before reading the script I only knew that it is a thriller with a twist of mythology. So, I was a little apprehensive at first. I was not too sure how to go about it because with Indian mythology in the mainstream, you can go wrong in many ways. But when I started reading what really attracted me was that there are three parts in the narrative, there is mythology, forensic science, and human drama, they were so beautifully entwined together that you took one out and the other two will fall. So it was not really transposed one over the other. And I think that is what appealed to me the most. And whenever I do a project, my focus point always retains in human story. Revenge doesn't stay in your mind for a long time, but human story does. And that's what we tried in Asur 2 as well. Every character in Asur had their own story.

Q. The language of Asur is something that appealed to audiences very much. Many dialogues are in Sanskrit too. How easy or difficult it was to get the tone?

A. Yes, you are completely right that it was not easy to get this tone in writing. And I think the writing team managed to crack that code beautifully. I always feel that the dialogues are not just the words written by the author, those are the words that need to come out from a person's mouth. So, it depends on the facts that, in which environment the character is, from which environment he has come, how much he is educated, what kind of person he is. Now, when you will look at Asur, the main character had grown up in a pandit family in Banaras and he is read a lot. So, his basic language is exactly like that, Hindi with a mix of Sanskrit in it. Whereas the other characters such as Nikhil, DJ, or Naina, their words are a lot more urban. They are from Delhi, so yes, they speak in Hindi, but the tone is different. So, there is a balance. Many people reached out to me praising Shubh's dialogue that how deep and interesting those dialogues were. And even Anant's. I think there was an inherent simplicity that attracted audience. Dialogues were not written to show off that how beautifully we can write. It was about how simply you can communicate the most interesting things. So, I these were the things that really worked well.

Q. The character of Shubh Joshi is being much talked about. Will you share your experience of working on the characterization?

A. Firstly, I am so grateful, I found these two actors. They made my job so much easier. The thing is before finalising any actor, I normally write a lot about characters just so we have a clearer idea of who to cast. For Shubh, I just wrote that he is a simple boy, but there is a lot inside him. He is creating storm outside in the world, but there is a certain stillness in him. This was my brief to the actor. I did not want Shubh to be the stereotypical bad villain. I wanted someone whose eyes speak. If you notice closely, his eyes hardly move, there are very few blinks. I think Vishesh (Bansal) worked very beautifully in the first season. We worked a lot together to understand the body language of Shubh. We wanted to keep his tone as flat as possible. Even his shawl never flutters. And then of course with his entire demeanor, we had to find the older Shubh for Season 2, which we got in Abhishek (Chauhan). He was also fantastic.

You know, if I may say, one of my favourite scenes was when Shubh goes to meet his grandfather and kills him. Both Deepak and Abhishek were amazing. You can even see tears rolling down his cheek. It's like he doesn't want to do what he has to do, but there is no choice for him. There is a conflict going on in his mind, which we get to see for just a moment. Then that goes away. It's like saying I love you but I could kill you. These types of scenes are very tough to communicate on screen. We worked on these to make Shubh a complex character, but also one that is rounded and slightly soulful.

Q. How it was working with child artists like Vishesh (Bansal) and Atharva?

A. Most of the time, when you are working with a child, it makes you very different as a director too. When I work with children I hardly ever tell them what he/she needs to do. But I say to them, this is what you have to make me feel, and most of the time it worked quite well. The entire thing about Anant was that he has to come across as a miracle boy. We all know that somebody who gets lots of spiritual awareness tends to have a certain calmness about things. Like a smile of compassion for the adults he meets. He has such aura and therefore my entire brief to Anant was that whatever you speak, just speak slowly and don't try to enact every word. I must tell you, we had a lot of that vision comes from the young Bhakt Prahlad illustration from Amar Chitra Katha. So, to me, that was like the boy I wanted. Seeing whom one can feel that there is something spiritual about him.

Q. Asur 2 deals with mythology. Did you fear a backlash or controversy, especially in the times that we are living in?

A. Yes. there was a thought at the back of our head from the beginning. See there is a difference between documented history and mythology. Even if you are working on documented history, there is bound to be some kind of criticism because some things are subjective. And this goes to another level when it comes to mythology because it is closely connected to religion at some point. So, if you are working on it, then one should be ready for critisism. In that way, I think, first we are lucky and second, I think the team did put in a lot work to make sure that whatever we are including is just for the story, and there is nothing that can remotely hurt anybody, any sentiments. Our aim was not to stir anything or create controversy, we just wanted to tell a very engaging story. Everything was researched and everything was written keeping in mind not to hurt any sentiments. If you see the character of Shubh, who thinks that he is like an incarnation of Kali, who is the dark side. Now, if you think, I'm sure a lot of human beings in this world believe that they have faith in the dark side. And that's why people do things that are not so nice, I guess.

Q. Is Asur 3 on cards?

A. (Laughs) See, if there is Season 3, then it is something that will come out of Gaurav's mind. We have been discussing actually that just because Asur and Asur 2 have become very successful, means we have to have Asur 3. That cannot be the reason. We need to find the right spark. The idea is that if one gets the fantastic thought, on which we can spend two and a half years of life. Then we will go ahead and make that. So as of now, there is nothing, I think.

Q. To end with, what kind of content do you want to work on as a director?

A. Anything to do with human drama is what attracts me. When I was working on Asur and Season 2 of Out Of Love, this is the thing appealed to me. And what I am working on right now is, there are two films and a series. All of them are in developing stage right now. One of them is a thriller, the other film is a light hearted human drama. So ya, I am looking out for different kinds of canvas.