Director Milan Luthria’s (The Dirty Picture) debut web series Sultan of Delhi is set in Delhi of the 1960s and follows a young man called Arjun Bhatia as he grows into the Sultan of Delhi. The crime drama series is adapted from Arnab Ray’s novel Sultan of Delhi: Ascension, and features Tahir Raj Bhasin a Arjun and Anjumm Shharma as his buddy Bangali. The cast also includes Mouni Roy, Vinay Pathak, Nishant Dahiya and Anupriya Goenka.
Bhasin (Mardaani, '83) and Shharma (Mirzapur) spoke about their roles and acting in the stylized period drama and what it took to make Sultan of Delhi (streaming on Disney+ Hotstar from October 13, 2023).
Milan Luthria loves period settings and crime dramas. What was it like working on this hyper-stylized '60s crime drama?
Tahir: Rarely do you get to work with someone whose films you've grown up watching. I remember watching Kachche Dhaage (1999) in the cinema. Then there's Once Upon A Time in Mumbai and The Dirty Picture (2011).
What's great about Milan Luthria is his unabashed honesty in the medium that he's creating, and how he gets the vintage look and feel absolutely right, without it being in your face. It's almost like a character in the story.
To give you a simple example, we spent three to four weeks just doing costume trials to get the fit of those jackets right, to make sure that the right fabric was being chosen to make the trousers, to get the correct waist, to get our haircuts right.
I love his honesty in doing the heightened drama in a way where it doesn’t become caricature, but it's also not so real, yet it’s relatable. So, if his heroes have to have a conversation, they're going to do it on top of a train, and if there's going to be a gunfight, it's going to be in leather jackets in a desert.
Sultan of Delhi (Screen grab/YouTube/Disney+Hotstar)
Also read: Disney+Hotstar’s Sultan of Delhi review: A wholesomely unremarkable period drama
There's a bromance thing going on in Sultan of Delhi as well. How important is it for two actors to build a rapport off-screen?
Anjumm: You have to be very secure as an actor to actually delve into anything where you are sharing the lead space with another actor. But I think both Tahir and I have a contemporary way of thinking. I know that he's very secure as an actor and we both have a certain craft, which we share. Once you are secure with your craft and clear about your part – that this is what you know about Arjun and this is what Bangali is – then you have to come together as a team in order for the show to work, for the friendship to work.
Interestingly the first scene we shot together was the scene where we meet for the first time in the story also. Initially, Tahir and I would only talk about work and our characters, but I think we formed a good equation, with respect, love and friendship.
Tahir: When it comes to a bromance, or any kind of partnership on screen... it's like a table-tennis match. You're only as good as your opponent or only as challenged as an actor as by your co-actor. That is an important factor for me. I was very excited that Anjumm was on board because he brings that much talent to play off. The shooting schedule was structured like a road trip. One week we were in Amritsar, the next week we were in Patiala, then we were in the deserts of Gujarat. This is because Delhi of the 1950s and 1960s was being created in these places. That's when camaraderie develops off-screen - when you are going on a crazy adventure. Hopefully it translates on screen.
Tahir, what makes your character of Arjun Bhatia, the sultan, tick?
There are a lot of guns and criminals in this show but I think one of the beautiful things about Sultan of Delhi is that sometimes even the good guys have to cross over to the other side in order to get what is rightfully theirs. And it actually questions the whole idea of right and wrong or morals, so to speak.
The '60s were a very different time and the way people operated was very different. For me, the balancing act of playing in the grey space is very interesting because I think that's real life. No one is all good, or all bad. Today's audience is very smart and always identifies with the most human aspect of the character. And that was the challenge - how do you make Arjun human and relatable.
I would say Arjun has nerves of steel. He’s got grit. What was fascinating about playing him was the fact that there's a boyish adventurousness in him. At the same time, there's this fierceness and conviction of a man. There’s a voiceover that says he's come from across the border, so you see someone who doesn't belong, who's a refugee. He has to claw his way back into the social hierarchy, and navigate everything that comes with that. He's a hustler and a survivor.
Anjumm, who is Bangali?
The premise of the story starts with the Partition period and then we come to the time where the story of Arjun and Bangali respectively kicks off. We are definitely talking about people who have been impacted by a big event that is going to define their lives. As for Bangali, I would say he's a flamboyant guy who lives in the moment. He doesn't have too many friends, but he doesn't analyse too much or spend too much time being critical. He is decisive and most of the time, he’s very happy. He can move from situations and mental states swiftly. Once he meets this guy, Arjun, who is new to the business, he instantly sees there's something in him. There's something incomplete in Arjun and there is something incomplete in Bangali.
Delhi is another major character in the show. What was it like shooting a period piece set in Delhi?
Anjumm: A crime-based saga set in 1960s Delhi is a unique point. Recreating Delhi in this period was very tough, because most of the structures, facades, monuments and streets might not look the way they did in the 1960s. So we shot in different places where we could find a relevant structure - places around Rajkot or by lanes in Punjab. The palette, the character of Delhi was very important and hopefully audiences will like what they see.
Tahir: As we're based in the '60s, one has to keep in mind that there was a certain social, economic dynamic that existed just post-Partition where everyone was trying to make it, so to speak. This could be in business, in politics, even in romantic relationships. So while Delhi does play a character, there's a very human, animal kingdom kind of survivalist mindset that the characters have, which is very interesting, because not a lot has changed when it comes to Delhi and to ticking off those boxes of the need for power. Even today. Of course, all of this has the veneer of hyper-realistic masala entertainment that Milan Luthria brings to the table.
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