CHENNAI : The Netflix series Maamla Legal Hai opens with some quick, old-school comic strips that take us through the district court of Patparganj. A voice-over introduces us to the strange new world we are about to enter, which is full of eccentric lawyers who will stop at nothing to make their case strong. One amongst them, VD Tyagi (Ravi Kishan), wants to become the next Attorney General. He is a shrewd lawyer and some of his tactics go against the law. However, he is a man of good heart, as the voice-over proclaims, “Ye sab coat ke kale hai, dil ke kale nahi (They wear dark coats but have bright hearts)”. Writer Sourabh Khanna reveals the process behind coming up with this quirky line with co-writer Kunal Aneja. “While thinking of the characters, we would ask ourselves some silly questions about the courtroom,” he says. “We would think about things like, ‘Why do lawyers wear black?’. While working on the scenes, we came up with this line that defined our world clearly.”
The quirkiness of the show supports its heartfelt honesty. Each episode follows a new case which is handled by the lawyers. At the same time, their individual ambitions follow a parallel trail, giving moments of comic relief through unusual situations. While deciding on the title of the show, the makers explain how they were looking for something that would be comically appealing. Sourabh reveals that it was finalized after considering many options. “We started with a working title and along the way, many other options were considered. One title that I personally liked was ‘Law, Karlo Baat’,” he says. “Then there was ‘Lagbhag Legal Hai’ as well. But some titles were already registered by others so we finally zeroed down to Maamla Legal Hai, which everyone liked.”
The jest for wordplay is not just restricted to the title. The word ‘egregious’ is at the centre of the first episode where VD Tyagi wants to impress a senior lawyer and hires someone to write an article for him in good English. For Ravi Kishan, the character of Tyagi invited a certain freshness. “I have a lot of friends who are lawyers,” he says. “They used to tell me how lawyers have been portrayed in films in some sort of black-and-white manner. They are either too serious or just bad people. Their humane side was seldom explored. So, when I read the script of Maamla Legal Hai, I felt that the characters were crafted with some simplicity and it really appealed to me.”
The simplicity along with a fair balance of humour comes from the mind of Sameer Saxena, who serves as the showrunner of the series. He has previously worked on creating comedy shows like Kota Factory (2019), Gullak (2019) and Panchayat (2020). He likes watching and making comedies that are subtle.
“There are different kinds of comedies,” he says. “One is where you go all out and over the top. But I enjoy the ones that are subtle, where the humour exists because of funny situations but the characters remain serious.” Sameer feels that the characters should never come out as caricatured. “That’s what we have attempted in Maamla Legal Hai as well. While watching the show, you won’t get a feeling that anything random is happening,” he signs off.