“Web is far more immersive”

Nonika Singh

As the web is being touted as destination entertainment, here is one of its rising star creators and diehuj ard votaries. Karan Anshuman may be just two web series old, but can easily take a bow. His first web series, Inside Edge, a heady cocktail of cricket, greed and fame has picked up an Emmy nomination. Besides, he is ready with his latest, Mirzapur, which he dubs as ‘hinterland western.’

With two of its episodes opening to enthused response at MAMI festival, he promises a rollicking fun ride, riding high on guns and gun culture. In this ‘hyper real world’, a phrase he uses often to describe this realm powered as much by imagination as reality, he adds, “Here you will find very real characters, dark, brooding and intense, virtually all of them, even good guys carrying a gun.”

Violence and sex with which his series are undeniably laced with, he insists, are not an imperative in the digital world. Nor does the peppering of the three-letter forbidden word make the web series a sure-fire hit.

“We are a repressed society and censorship makes it even worse. So after a long time, both filmmakers and the audiences are enjoying the freedom that online offers,” he says.

He doesn’t think that the power of web is overhyped or overestimated. With regular two-hour format of cinema becoming a tad predictable, he believes the edgy and precarious thrill of web series is certainly its USP. “It is a new exciting format where you get to viewers’ mobile screens in a jiffy. It may seem like a niche viewership but it is deep and vast.”

As against cinema viewing, which is more like a party/ night out/ circus and a communal experience, web watching is an isolated individual foray, he says. That is why, “it is far more immersive,” he says.

Whether binge watching is the acid test or not, when viewers come and tell him that they watched all episodes of Inside Edge in one go, it is no cursory compliment but an irrefutable victory with no crosses counted.

“For someone to find my work so overpowering and overwhelming that they are willing to put everything else in their lives on hold is indeed very reassuring.”

Working on the second season of the Emmy-nominated show, he foresees no real danger of losing out on viewers. With Inside Edge becoming the most watched title on Prime Video in India, the loyal following is humongous. Besides, he thinks, replicating the success of first season is far easier. “For we already have the template and it can only get better the next time.”

There are no issues as far as several directors helming the same web series. Along with Puneet Krishna, he’s the showrunner of Mirzapur. Though Gurmeet Singh is the principal director of the series, Karan shares how they are all on the same page and in sync with each other’s sensibilities.

As far as web content goes, has the show just begun or we have already moved many notches up? With Sacred Games, and now his own Mirzapur, he says we are getting where international shows like Narcos already are. Whether a desi Game of Thrones is around the corner or even a possibility, he deems, “Today Indian web content isn’t so much about VFX and technology as original stories that filmmakers have been dying to tell.”

Good content is a promise he intends to keep up in times to come as well. In his next series, he will bid adieu to cuss words and violence. “This one shall be in a happy space... and family viewing for sure.” Did we hear that right ... didn’t he just say cinema is for families and web more of an ‘each to his own’ staple. But then predictability, he knows, is the bane of entertainment. He has no intention to lose out on the surprise advantage. For now, ‘with television so bad for so long,’ both he and the web undisputedly have an edge.