Guns & Gulaabs, the fourth OTT show by the director duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK—after two highly gratifying seasons of The Family Man (2019, 2021) and the patchy but powerful Farzi (2023)—is a carefully constructed romp. Nothing is at it seems, but there’s nothing serious or metaphorical about the world they craftily build—satire and realism blend seamlessly in the seven episodes populated by a wide spectrum of characters. Characters are intentionally as well as unintentionally funny. It is a gangster drama, a romance, as well as a coming-of-age story.
Rajkummar Rao and Dulquer Salmaan are in big roles in the scheme of the story, and so are Adarsh Gourav, TJ Bhanu and Shreya Dhanwanthary, but a hero or heroine are difficult to pinpoint. Many other characters have their crucial moments in the plot and the universe the duo build along with co-writer Sumit Arora, played by a supremely competent ensemble cast.
The backdrop is the 1990s, when in a small town in India, in this case a fictional town named Gulaabganj, love letters used to be exchanged and Bryan Adams lyrics (or any English song that played on cassette players) had magical powers even for those who didn’t think in English. The villain played by Gulshan Devaiah has a Sanjay Dutt-in-Khalnayak swag. The Indian economy has opened up, and its disruptions are just beginning to show. Everything is simpler, and hopeful. Guns & Gulaabs is an enjoyable ride—sometimes grippingly satirical, often hilarious and sometimes dark.
In this interview, Raj & DK, as they are known, talk about recreating the '90s, finding their middle-of-the-road formula and their next outings. Edited excerpts:
It’s been 20 years since your first film Flavours. What are some of the lessons, and things you have had to unlearn working in this industry?
Raj Nidimoru: Learn is to stick to what kind cinema we believe in. Unlearn would be the influences, because whenever we have stuck to the kind of cinema we want to make, it came out as a better film or a series. Constant unlearning is necessary. There are great films out there, there are bad films out there. Watch all of it, and let them go and return to what we want to do. That way it stays unique.
How has streaming changed the way you think and work?
Raj: It liberated us as filmmakers because there are no format restrictions. We can cast anyone from across the country. We can create stories with multiple sub-plots and multiple characters. We can experiment with cinematography, do without songs. You can stay more pure to filmmaking now.
You have perfected a kind of middle-of-the-road storytelling language that has been so successful where commercial meets realistic storytelling. Was that a deliberate choice when you started? How did that language evolve?
Krishna DK: I don’t remember the choice part of it. But I remember us thinking, even before or as we were making our first film, that the ideal kind of cinema would be to make a commercially viable film that has the sensibilities of an art film. How that gets interpreted differed from people to people.
Back in the day, 15 or 20 years ago, there was a clear distinction between commercial and arthouse. You would associate intelligence or realism or even basic logic to art cinema; meanwhile, commercial cinema could do away with any of these aspects, and then we thought our language should have all the great elements of art cinema and also be entertaining like a commercial film. All our work has reflected that kind of a balance.
Tell me about the beginnings of ‘Guns & Gulaabs’. How did it begin and where did this journey take you?
Raj: We wanted to make a show about slightly inconsequential people. Usually the protagonist is always glorified. So we wanted somebody who is just a guy; somebody you don’t really focus on. We used to call this person “the back-benchers”. All the characters represent that—that’s a thematic thread that holds all character from the four stories together.
More than that, we wanted to make a series that is like a stream of consciousness, a free form which we have a lot of fun making. We mash up genres like they head-on collide—thriller, romance, satire, violence all unfold together. We wanted to make the flavour dark and delicious in an entertaining way. We wanted it to be something different from the majority of content we are watching today so that it can be a break for us and for the audience. Away from the seriousness of The Family Man and intensity of Farzi, Guns & Gulaabs has been a fun ride.
Krishna DK: It is a pulp throwback. You are shocked in places and you are still laughing. And you are surprised at every turn.
The 1990s were an exciting and difficult generation—a lot was new, and yet we had one foot firmly in rigid traditions. How do you view the '90s first open-market and globalized decade now?
DK: Late '80s and early '90s—the times were simplistic. People were simpler. Things have gotten way more complicated now. A lot of people were blissfully unaware of big things happening in the world.
Raj: We had to make a lot of effort to achieve something in the '90s. A simple text won’t do, you have to actually write a love letter. The romantic ideas that existed then are one of the elements of our show. Once you take out technology and mobile phones, this is a story that could happen in the '90s in an Indian small town.
The period details in ‘Guns & Gulaabs’—tell me how you went about creating that, and what about the 90s did you want to bring out through the series?
DK: The story is set in that decade. There is a certain innocence in all the characters. The rest of it is texture, the music, references to brands and shows. But the idea was of course not to create a show that will have everything you need to know about the '90s.The focus is on characters and their journeys, as you can see. The period details are there as texture.
The violence in this is quite graphic. Was that conscious, and why did you make that choice?
Raj: I would call the violence funny or comical. None of it is supposed to churn your stomach. We wanted to find humour in the violence. So really, throwback to Asterix or Tintin or cartoon violence. We don’t think of it as graphic violence. Jerry does a lot of shit to Tom. The idea was to make everything in the show a bit funny. There is morbid humour, dark humour. The violence is meant to make you smile or laugh.
What are some of the projects we can expect next?
DK: We finished shooting for Citadel India. That will be coming out next. We have another show called Gulkanda Tales on Amazon Prime. We are developing a couple of projects for Netflix.
Raj: We are looking to make a feature film next year.
Guns & Gulaabs dropped on Netflix on 18 August.
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