POV: How Kohrra 2 nails its grounded depiction of a father's grief!

Moving beyond the traditional idea of Northern Indian masculinity, the series explores a suffocating, silent grief that proves more dangerous than any mystery.

​In the cultural and cinematic realms of Northern India, the father is looked upon as a fortress - a sturdy protector and provider of the family who isn’t allowed to break or the entire home falls apart. Be it a good or bad day at work, festivities or tender moments of vidaai, I’ve only seen the patriarchs internalize it all, as if overt expressions of their feelings would bring disgrace to the clan! However, in the second season of Netflix’s Kohrra, there is a radical shift in dynamics as we witness this fortress not just crumble but rot inside out! In the show, interwoven with the mystery of a whodunit is an autopsy of male grief that is rarely explored before. Through Jagdish Sood (Pradhuman Singh Mall), the series explores a specific kind of suffocating sorrow that Indian cinema has been too afraid to depict as it doesn’t fit the popular idea of masculinity and requires depth and layers that are hard to execute.

Punjab is a land often associated with hyper-masculinity, where a father’s identity is rigidly tied to his roles of protecting and providing for the household. So when Jagdish loses his son, Nihal, to a road accident, his manhood is shaken to the very core as he feels he failed in the most basic of his roles as a father. Unlike his wife, Dhanwant (Mona Singh), who channels her pain into the rigorous demands of her job as a police officer, Jagdish spirals into depression, leaving him purposeless in life. He becomes a ghost in his own house, spending his days moving aimlessly through rooms and nights - getting wasted at local wine shops. Kohrra 2 ditches the 'Angry Young Man' or the 'Strict Patriarch' tropes to show us a man who is slowly getting engulfed by his sorrow and has completely given up on his life. The portal stays grounded in realism as Jadgish is never shown having melodramatic breakdowns or scheming a revenge, he is simply withdrawing. 

Also Read:Kohrra 2 review: As the kohrra slowly lifts in season 2, the paatal lok we inhabit becomes all the more visible!

Jagdish’s spiral into extreme alcoholism also reflects how men from traditional settings often try to escape their feelings through unhealthy distractions or addictions, maybe because they are rarely equipped with an emotional vocabulary. Jagdish, like most Indian men, won’t admit to feeling lonely or sad. In fact, he is conditioned to think suffering in silence is an act of valour. And when the silence becomes too hard to bear, alcohol becomes the only available anesthesia for his pain that eventually reduces the ‘man of the house’ to a social baggage that his wife will ultimately have to carry, furthering both their miseries. 

One of the most human elements of the season is how tragedy affects their relationship. In one of the later scenes, when Jagdish is finally opening up about his trauma, he shares that he was always into a habit of drinking but his wife would worriedly plead him to mend his lifestyle, however after the brutal accident, she simply stopped and came forward only to drag him home from wine shops, an act conveying Dhanwant’s silent angst against her man. In another scene, he tries to get rid of the memories of the night of the accident by giving away his son’s bike to a dealer for free, only to be stopped by Dhanwant. Besides, there are sequences where the two are in the same room but hardly utter a word, which carry a crushing emotional weight. The couple who shares the same house is distanced by a vast ocean of silence, stemming from the unaddressed trauma of never discussing the loss or at least memories of their deceased teenage son. This is a reality for millions of families, especially fathers who resort to embracing silence to navigate through trauma rather than engaging in uncomfortable conversations. 

​Kohrra 2 is a deeply haunting watch because it feels like a mirror held up to the various cultural norms that we turn a blind eye to or brush under the carpet. It is one of those rare whodunits wherein the resolution of the case feels secondary to the themes it commented on. But on another important note, the show, in an understated manner, bats for a new kind of masculinity - the one that makes space for a father to lay his guard down, express his deepest darkest feeling and admit that he is lost - without fearing judgement! It reminds us that until we allow our patriarchs to freely express themselves, they will be bound to be lost in the Kohrra of their own making.

Kohrra 2 is streaming in Netflix

For more entertainment, follow us on @socialketchupbinge.