Writer Mayukh Ghosh on how Karisma Kapoor shed vanity in ‘Brown’

The writer of the Karisma Kapoor starrer 'Brown' shares his experience working on the series, shaping Karisma Kapoor's character and his bonding with director Abhinay Deo. Mayukh Ghosh, the writer behind Karisma Kapoor's web series 'Brown,' is currently basking in the success and positive reviews the series has received. The series is an adaptation of a novel named 'City Of Death,' and Mayukh as a writer feels ecstatic to be part of the show. Commenting on writing Karisma Kapoor's character, which is also her comeback project, Mayur shares, "The exciting bit was that this is the first time Karisma is playing a cop and not the kind of cop anyone associates with her. Rita Brown is an alcoholic, she’s carrying a lot of unhealed trauma, she’s completely removed from the roles Karisma has portrayed before. So there was a real thrill in giving someone of her stature a part with no safety net and just watching her go for it. What I noticed early on is that she approached Rita through the physicality of the character. The way she’d tie her hair back like she has no time for vanity, the furrow in her brow, the heaviness in how she moves and the constant rolling of cigarettes. Karisma doesn’t smoke and had no idea how to roll, so Abhinay trained her in all aspects of smoking. She built the character from the outside in and that gave me a lot to write towards. One thing I decided quite early was that Rita would laugh only once in the whole series. And Karisma immediately understood why that mattered and protected it, because when someone never laughs, it tells you everything about what they’re carrying. Because underneath it all, Rita is fighting this exhausting battle with herself. The kind that pulls you away from the people who love you, makes you want to just retreat into a shell." "But the thing I find most human about her and Karisma got this completely, is that she still shows up every single day. That’s the contradiction I find interesting. She cares about the victims, about the city and at the same time she doesn’t. She lives in these dualities at once. She’s always on the edge of giving up and still fights it. Writing someone that conflicted is hard but Karisma made the journey look like a breather," he adds. The series is directed by director Abhinay Deo. Speaking about the creative collaboration with him while shaping Brown, Mayukh shares "There's a difference between a director who hands you a destination and one who walks the road with you. Abhinay is firmly the second kind. He'd push, he'd question, he'd nudge a scene towards what he could see in his head. He had a clear vision for Brown and guided the writing with it constantly, without ever imposing. Both of us are dogged about authenticity. And Kolkata isn't one city, it's a dozen towns stacked on top of each other, each with its own language and rules. The Anglo-Indian world Rita comes from in Bow Barracks, the Bihari migrant family Arjun belongs to, the Marwari business clan, the Bengali world of someone like Dr. Sandeep and Chinatown. Every one speaks, eats, even grieves differently. So a lot of our work happened on the ground, me taking Abhinay through the city I know, its food as much as its streets." "We're both incurable foodies and that felt right, because here food is character. It tells you about someone's memory and class. It kept finding its way in through Anglo dishes, the Bihari sattu sherbet or the coffee-house addas. I wanted Tagore running through it too, like a collective conscience of the city and Abhinay just had the instinct to let all of that stay rather than tidy it away. None of that means we never clashed. The climax is the best example. We both wanted exactly the same thing for it, we just kept trying to get there but by completely different routes. We went back and forth endlessly, something like forty drafts of that one scene, neither of us willing to let go. And when we finally cracked it during the shoot, we celebrated by going for a swim," he concludes. More about 'Brown' Directed by Abhinay Deo, 'Brown' is a gritty neo-noir crime drama series adapted from Abesh Bhowmick's acclaimed novel 'City of Death'. Marking the highly anticipated, boundary-pushing comeback of Bollywood icon Karisma Kapoor, the narrative follows Rita Brown, a deeply traumatized, alcoholic cop navigating the underbelly of Kolkata. Set against the fractured, culturally rich city stretching from the Anglo-Indian hub of Bow Barracks to Chinatown, the show strips away Karisma's quintessential 90s glamour in favor of a raw, unvarnished look at grief, systemic corruption, and human resilience. [Image text:] HIN E50 BROWN 924814 N