In the second season of Kohraa, the fog is thicker, and the cops far more fragile. The crime may be the hook, but it is grief, ego, patriarchy and private fractures that drive the engine. This time, stepping into the established universe is Mona Singh as Dhanwant Kaur—a cop carrying loss like a second skin. Singh had already been a fan of the first season. So when the call came, it was a celebration. “Reading the script, understanding the character of Dhanwant, which is so complex and so not easy to play—that’s what I loved. The challenge of something I’ve never done before,” she says.
If Singh is entering the landscape, Barun Sobti returns to it. As ACP Garundi, he charts a quiet coming-of-age. The ferocity hasn’t vanished; it has matured. “He is a little more controlled this time,” Sobti says. “He’s starting a new life with his wife. There’s way too much female influence in his life now than there was earlier,” he laughs. “It’s delicate.” Garundi is softer, more measured, more restrained—with his wife and with Dhanwant. The writers, Sobti shares, felt Season 2’s Garundi was closer to who he is off-screen. “He’s more evolved. I think his evolution is nice.”
Dhanwant, meanwhile, is not designed for comfort. She is navigating personal loss, a fragile home, and a workplace that measures her worth against domestic success. A failing marriage becomes professional ammunition. Singh underlines the hypocrisy: a woman’s supposed inadequacy as a homemaker becomes shorthand for weakness in uniform. “That’s how a woman is subjected to in a man’s world,” she says. “There were so many layers to Dhanwant, and to unpeel them is very challenging.”
Sobti recognises that same interiority in the show’s writing. “We’re humanising the cops, not idolising them,” he says. “They’re flawed, emotional and deeply humane. They’re not just solving a case—they’re reflecting upon their own lives.” Once branded television’s romantic “Prince Charming”, Sobti has long stepped away from that mould. “I always figured that unlearning is the very important part,” he says. “But honestly, learning was the real deal for me on Kohraa. Construction of the image of an actor lies with the perceiver; I was never trying to build the image.”
For Singh, preparation did not begin with rehearsing lines. It began with dismantling walls. The workshops were, in her words, “life workshops.” Emotional recalls, deep dives, drills that left her unexpectedly raw. “I rarely cry,” she admits. “It’s easier for me to cry in front of the camera than in real life. But in the workshop, I was howling constantly. There was so much pain Dhanwant was going through.” Sobti’s breakthrough came in stillness. “I’ve been wanting to act the way I have in this show for a long time, but I was always told to do more—be louder, more expressive,” he says. He recalls the first scene of Season 1 with a grin. “I was so sure I’d be told that my voice was too soft, that I wasn’t animated enough. Instead, I was told, ‘This is smooth.’ I was surprised. And grateful. I felt like I had found my home ground.”
That, perhaps, is what Kohraa ultimately offers its actors—and its audience. A home for restraint. A space where flawed people are allowed to simply be.