#TheAfterHour: “I was interested in the irony of the protector and the predator.” - Suresh Triveni on Daldal

Creator of films like Jalsa and Tumhari Sulu, Suresh Triveni talks to us about his new show Daldal, a psychological thriller more interested in the why behind a serial killer than in catching them!

Crime thrillers have become a staple diet, one we consume every other week. It’s no surprise, then, that we’ve learned their rulebook - what will happen, when it will happen and often how it will end. Over time, many of these shows turn into comfortable background viewing rather than edge-of-the-seat experiences. The real challenge, therefore, is to bring something innovative to the genre, something that restores the thrill without feeling exhausting or repetitive. That’s precisely what Daldalcreator Suresh Triveni attempts to do.

Adapted from the book Bhendi Bazaar, Daldal throws away the conventional crime-thriller playbook. Instead, it feels like Triveni remembers the basic rules only to deliberately bend them, breaking the form, but also understanding when to rein it back in. The result is a psychological thriller centred on cop, Rita Ferreira (Bhumi Pednekar), one that is as much about catching a serial killer as it is about examining how the cop and the killer are not entirely different from each other. In doing so, the series makes a compelling case for the idea that criminals are shaped by their circumstances, not born in isolation. But how does Triveni arrive at these choices? We spoke to the filmmaker to understand the thinking behind the show, the creative decisions that shaped it, and what motivated him to approach a familiar genre so differently.

Also Read: Daldal review: A reflective psychological thriller that starts strong until it runs out of depth!

Here’s what he had to say! 

Unlike most crime thrillers that follow a familiar rulebook, you reveal the killer as early as the first episode. It’s a bold and risky choice. What led you to take that decision?

Suresh Triveni: A who-done-it is always exciting, but what personally interests me, both in the genres I watch and the stories I want to tell, is the mind of the killer. Normally, that part gets reduced to just two scenes at the end, once the killer is caught, their backstory and motivations are quickly summarised, almost treated like a montage. I’ve always felt that’s a missed opportunity. Here, I wanted to really delve into the psychology of the killer. I’ve explored this approach earlier as well. In Jalsa, for instance, within the first ten minutes you know who ran over the child. That kind of storytelling interests me far more because I believe it’s a much bigger narrative challenge. Yes, it is risky but it’s also more exciting.

When you already know who the killer is, the real question becomes - how do you keep the narrative engaging? That challenge has always fascinated me. There are films like Monster where you’re aware of the killer from the start, but what truly holds your attention is the character and the psychology behind their actions. By revealing the killer early, you give yourself the opportunity to explore their backstory in depth - the origins of their violence, their emotional history, and everything that led them to that point. That, for me, is far more compelling than simply solving a mystery.

Would you say the series is less interested in who the killer is and more focused on how a criminal is manufactured?

ST: Yes, it’s very much about the why. If I can interest my audience in that question, there’s nothing more rewarding than that. This is a genre that’s been done to death, almost every week there’s a new crime story dropping. So the real challenge is finding a differentiator. Focusing on how a criminal mind is shaped, rather than just identifying the criminal, was one of the key motivations behind choosing this particular direction.

Would you say that the series is more of a thematic adaptation of Bhendi Bazaar rather than a direct narrative? Because the intention was to investigate society itself rather than just serial killers.

ST: You’re right! It is more about origins, particularly the origin of the cop and the people around her. What we did was use the book purely as a premise and then expand its horizons. There was no conscious or deliberate decision to explore society, but when you begin to delve into the world of the killer, the world around them inevitably comes into focus. You start examining what makes them who they are, the backdrop they come from, the people they interact with, and the systems they exist within. In that process, a commentary on society naturally emerges, including how much responsibility society itself bears. So yes, it does turn into a form of commentary, almost by default. But I wouldn’t call it a social commentary first and foremost. It’s more of a psychological attempt to understand the violence within us. Even in Bhumi’s character Rita, there is an inherent violence, something simmering beneath the surface. Exploring that inner darkness, rather than making a statement, was the real focus.

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The journey of the killer isn’t the only one being shaped on screen. You frame your protagonist, Rita, in ways that mirror the person she’s pursuing. Why was it important for you to draw this parallel?

ST: There’s a very thin line between all of us. Inherently, we’re all primal. Over time through civilization, family, life, politics we learn to tame ourselves. But that line is fragile, and the flip can happen very easily. That idea interested me deeply. The violence within all of us and how different people deal with it. Some people act on it, some suppress it, some learn to live with it. That internal negotiation was something I wanted to explore through both these characters. Beyond that, I was also interested in the irony of the protector and the predator. There’s a line of memory that connects them. The antagonist lives inside memory every single moment, while the protagonist is constantly running away from it. What I wanted to explore was that by the end of this journey, Rita has to confront her own reality while investigating the case. Memory plays a crucial role here as to how people process trauma, how they carry it, and how it shapes their choices.

What was particularly fascinating to me was the relationship both characters have with their mothers. In Rita’s case, her guilt is tied to running away. If you look at the end, she runs as a child, while the other character hugs her mother, jumps from the building, and survives. That difference becomes significant. The guilt of running away versus the guilt of staying creates a strange parallel. Their lives aren’t exactly the same, but their choices, especially when it comes to their mothers mirror each other in unexpected ways. Some might call it coincidental, but I really liked that parallel. Both characters are shaped in very similar ways, yet they choose different paths. Rita, especially, chooses to be different every single time. Character-wise, she’s far more negative than one might expect, she can be mean, even difficult. It’s only toward the end, when she finally confronts herself, that something shifts. You know how a mother’s voice often lingers in your head, constantly telling you that you ruin everything? Rita carries that with her. While one character tries to preserve everything through memory, Rita is someone who has been trying to escape it. These tensions, these contradictions, were what excited us in the writers’ room while shaping her journey.

Bhumi’s performance is notably restrained and almost blank; was it a deliberate choice?

ST: Very much so! The series itself is volatile; there’s constant noise in the form of violence, killings, and heightened emotions. Against that chaos, we wanted RitaFerreira to feel restrained, almost still. She’s someone who processes everything internally. Now there are two ways to look at her - one is that the only emotion she knows how to express outwardly is anger, whether toward her boyfriend or the system. Often, people end up testing those closest to them more than the world outside. At her core, she’s an observer. She watches, absorbs, and chooses invisibility over visibility. That informed everything - the way she dresses, her expressions, her body language. You’re never meant to fully judge or decode what’s going on in her mind. That was one of the key briefs I gave Bhumi is when I look at you, I shouldn’t be able to tell what you’re thinking. Director Amrit Raj Gupta and Bhumi built on that together. Bhumi as a seasoned acrtor brought in these subtle details - tiny twitches, finger movements, shifts in her jawline, small, silent choices that reveal an inner violence without ever spelling it out. That quiet tension is exactly where we wanted the character to land.

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Even if the series isn’t a social commentary, the men are positioned in very specific ways. They aren’t outright antagonists, but “good men” who seem progressive on the surface. Was this a conscious comment on performative or pretentiously woke masculinity?

ST:No, not consciously at all. That was never the intention. What you’re responding to is more observation than design. Take the commissioner, for instance. He wants to be seen as woke but doesn’t quite have the language or sensitivity for it. When he says things like wanting Rita to be the first female DCP of Mumbai, it feels less about her and more about the legacy he wants to leave behind. Then there’s Vikram, who’s grappling with his own insecurities about Rita’s promotion. There’s a scene where he’s speaking with the commissioner about Rita, while his daughter sits behind them, and they casually discuss ideas of orthodoxy and progress, completely unaware of how loaded that conversation is in that moment. These are not villains by design; they’re people revealing themselves through behaviour. There was no conscious attempt to frame the men as a collective commentary, especially not in relation to the killings. 

Anita’s violence comes from her own lived experiences. For her, the biggest hurdles have been people who pretend to be good. That obsession grows out of her time at the orphanage and her belief that those who perform goodness often cause the deepest harm. At the same time, the series doesn’t box men into one mold. Sajid, for instance, exists on the other side of the fence entirely, he’s deeply vulnerable, in love, and emotionally exposed. Rita’s boyfriend Aditya is patient and nurturing; his very first scene has him in the kitchen, cooking for her, trying to create a sense of care. But she’s unable to let that comfort in. So there’s no definitive statement being made. That said, interpretations are inevitable. Every viewer brings their own lens to the show, and those readings are valid. We simply followed what each scene and character demanded. Given the spaces these women occupy, certain truths naturally surface.

The first murder with the raw chicken on paper tied to Anita. But when you remember him through Rita’s lens, it almost becomes overplayed in a different way. So your immediate response is: God, how irritating is this guy? And then the image of stuffing raw chicken into his mouth is disturbing but also strangely satisfying. What do you think?

ST: Honestly, haven’t we all felt a version of that? One of the origins of this idea came from a very ordinary situation of standing in a packed elevator or a crowded train, with one person speaking loudly, invading the space. For a split second, a violent thought flashes through your mind and then the doors open, you walk out, and you move on. That moment happens to all of us. Now imagine experiencing that irritation constantly. I can’t even begin to imagine how much more intense it must feel for women, who deal with this kind of intrusion every single day. Rita’s irritation in that scene comes from exactly that place. She’s searching for a private space, and suddenly there’s a man who embodies everything she’s trying to escape. He speaks in ways that remind her of her parents, of her past, of expectations she doesn’t want to carry anymore. At some point, she’s simply had enough.

It’s about not wanting to be patronised, she has zero tolerance for it. So yes, she has moments where, in her head, she wants to hurt the person patronising her. These are fleeting, internal impulses, the kind most of us experience but never act on. What the series then explores is what happens when that imagined violence collides with real, physical violence. When Rita later encounters the killing and sees a body that mirrors an image she had already imagined, the ground beneath her completely shifts. Imagine thinking something violent the night before, and then witnessing that violence in reality the next day, it’s terrifying. That collision between mental violence and real-world brutality was an underlying idea I wanted to explore throughout the show.

The show navigates the lanes of Mumbai through its invisibles - the addicts, the rejected, the neglected. Is this thematic focus part of your creative DNA? We see a similar gaze in Tumhari Sulu, Jalsa, and now Daldal, where you consistently explore unseen, often darker emotional worlds of women and human relationships.

ST:It’s actually not a conscious approach. I think sometimes these things are just reflexes you’re not even aware of. And honestly, the day I become self-aware is the day I should probably stop making things, because that’s the worst trap you can fall into. That’s when you start copying yourself. Manav Kaul once pointed this out to me. After Jalsa, which I made after Tumhari Sulu, I genuinely believed I’d made two very different films. And Manav said, “Sir, aapne koi alag film nahi banayi hai. Aapne wahi film banayi hai. Aurat hai, raat bhar jaati hai toh aapka kuch toh fear hai.” And I agreed. What’s ironic is that I was deliberately trying to move away from Tumhari Sulu and make something darker with Jalsa, and yet here I was, circling the same emotional territory. So maybe it is a reflex. Or maybe I’m just going darker and will need to see a shrink at some point (laughs). But more seriously, I think familiar territories naturally reveal themselves.

And I also feel that we’re all deeply curious about the darker side of ourselves because we can’t really go around exploring it in everyday life. At least I get to put pen to paper and explore it there. I also have to say this very clearly: a lot of the credit goes to my writers. I’ve had some incredible people on board - Rohan D’Souza, Sreekanth Agneeaswaran, Priya Saggi, Hussain Haidry, who have given everything to this over the last four years. The amount of effort they’ve put in is immense. And also it's about how all of us often enter these dark emotional spaces, but we also deny that we do. Think about something as small as killing a mosquito - why do you instinctively look at it afterwards? Why do you look at the blood? There’s something primal at play. I genuinely believe all of us have a certain side to us that we don’t like to acknowledge.

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The series leans into repetition and over-explanation. Was this a conscious choice to reinforce emotional recall, or does it reflect the demands of OTT platforms, especially in an era of second-screen viewing, as Matt Damon has spoken about?

ST: Matt Damon ne bol diya, ab sabko phasa diya (laughs). But honestly, making anything, any piece of work is always a negotiation. Most of us are just trying to find the best possible way to tell a story. And today, content is being consumed so widely that everyone involved - the studio, the producer, the platform they’re all consumers too. So you have to respect opinions. If we’re talking specifically about exposition, I won’t deny it. Yes, there are moments where things become expositional. People have their own scientific reasons for this - second screens, third screens, fragmented attention spans and exposition has increasingly become a part of storytelling. It also helps cater to a wider audience. Sometimes, too much nuance or subtlety can actually hamper comprehension. So when you’re making something for a broad audience, at some point you do have to explain things.

That said, I genuinely believe audiences are far more intelligent than we give them credit for. But these are also the realities we’re working within today. We all have to negotiate and make the best out of it. There’s also another aspect to this. When you’re writing something so closely, it’s very easy to lose track of just how many threads and loops you’ve created. By the end, when your story has touched so many layers, it becomes important to bring things together - to summarise, to give the audience a way to hold it all. So I see it as an opportunity rather than a compromise. It gives the audience a moment to breathe, to process. I’m not overly worried about it. I think we’ll all continue finding our own ways to navigate this balance.

Daldal is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video!

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