Jio Cinema’s recently released and appreciated show Ranneeti: Balakot & Beyond, as per the title, is about the Balakot attack and its aftermath. The series has an ensemble cast of Jimmy Shergill, Ashish Vidyarthi, Ashutosh Rana, Lara Dutta, Elnaaz Norouzi among others. Aniruddha Guha, one of the writers of the show, exclusively discussed with Bollywood Hungama on why this is not just any other India-Pakistan conflict story.
EXCLUSIVE: “My approach for writing Ranneeti was not that of a hyper nationalistic and typical India-Pakistan story,” says Aniruddha Guha
Guha said, “When the series was offered to me, it was in 2020. There have been a glut of series and films based around this incident. It might feel like, ‘Arre yaar, ek hi incident pe kitni stories bataoge?’ My big concern at that time was that it should not come across as the creators and makers trying to push a certain agenda.”
But Guha realized that the show was completely in his zone. “Honestly, what for me was interesting was the fact that when I read the original pitch for the show, I realized that this goes beyond being an average India-Pakistan story. My approach for writing Ranneeti was not that of a hyper nationalistic and typical India-Pakistan story. It was to craft a proper geo-political thriller. That as a genre is completely missing in our storytelling space. It is not an action show. It’s a show about diplomacy, international relationships,” he said and added that he is a very big fan of British and American spy shows.
Guha pointed that most of our shows and films on such topics are only limited to action. “We tend to make something which is very confined to a specific incident, whether it’s films or series,” he said. “What happens is that it doesn’t go beyond that. And not that there’s anything wrong with that. Uri: The Surgical Strike was a very interesting take on an incident, and they turned it into a very crafty action film. But how many of those can we make, right? You can’t keep churning stories around one incident again and again and again.”
Guha is glad that he and other writers of Ranneeti have taken the show beyond that. “We have gone into the nitty-gritties of what goes behind the scenes in the war room,” he said. “It really annoys me when I watch a film or a series where there is a conversation between characters where they say let’s attack this. You know, it’s not as simple as that. There are so many factors during war time. Like what will your collateral be, what will the international community say, how will we look. And what kind of damage will something like this do to us. What are the pros and cons of it.”
Interestingly, Guha compares the workings inside a war room to a corporate meeting. “I find that to be very interesting,” he said. “If you see (the show), it’s not just about the Balakot strike. In Ranneeti you will see that the characters, played by Jimmy Sheirgill or Ashish Vidyarthi. They mull over each decision. It’s almost like how a successful corporation runs. You don’t purely take a decision based on a whim or on the basis of a patriotic fervor.”
Guha also points out that the conflict between India and Pakistan isn’t the only one in the show. “What I find interesting about the show is that there is a personal conflict that these characters have. I might have a point of view where I feel that certain action needs to be taken or not needs to be taken. But logic might tell me otherwise,” he said.
Lastly, Aniruddha Guha reveals that his biggest joy from Ranneeti was that he had fun writing it. “When I got the material, my excitement and motivation to take it on was to have all the fun I wanted to have with an espionage thriller. I was having fun writing it. After the initial apprehensions I may have had, once I took it on, I was enjoying the material,” he signed off.
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