Indian Mythology Is A Gold Mine, It Has Everything

Oni Sen brought back the second season of much-loved web series Asur after a wait of three years on June 1. Asur 2 Rise Of The Dark Side has a stellar ensemble cast, led by Arshad Warsi and Barun Sobti along with Gaurav Arora, Anuritta K Jha, Anupria Goenka and Ridhi Dogra. It has received rave reviews and has the audiences hooked. The Free Press Journal caught up with the director for an exclusive interaction.

When asked about how difficult for him to tell a story like Asur 2, Oni shares, “What makes it easier is that If I have a good story to tell, what I do normally is that I tend to bypass the event, since it’s the first thing that attracts you, sometimes it is dramatic and sometimes it is fantastic. The characters take you to the core of it, if they don’t that it won’t make sense.”

He adds, “Be it Out of Love or Asur 2, I always invest in the human journey and see why the characters are doing, what they are doing. We generally don’t act in our lives, we react in our lives. I am fortunate enough to have worked with a talented bunch of actors. I don’t tell my actors what to do since I am not an actor so I would limit them to perform if I instruct.”

Sharing further on creating India’s first-ever mythological thriller, he reveals, “The entire credit goes to the creator and writer Gaurav Shukla. He came up with this idea of mixing aspects of mythology with the thriller and making it a drama. Asur is more of a drama than a thriller. He cracked the code very beautifully even before we sat down together for the narration. If you see the Indian mythology, it is a gold mine, it has everything — science, technology, human emotions, etc. I feel what resonated the most with the viewers is the entire journey of all the characters.”

Oni has a certain style of storytelling and the actors, who have worked with him claim that he is by far the finest they have worked with. “I try to make the actors feel their characters. If you see Anuritta’s character Kamini, she just comes from the cold in the narrative. We all have a path in the universe so I actually worked on her path. I told her to let herself be. I come from a design school so negative space is more important than the positive, be it photography or my scenes,” he explains.

Oni Sen with Arshad Warsi on the sets of Asur 2 |

Oni, who has a knack of telling stories in a long form, believes that OTT is a more liberal medium. “Making something for OTT is a huge advantage since it gives you more latitude. It is like playing a test match innings. It allows us to create magic for a longer period of time. It is like having a book on a shelf and you can enjoy that at any point of time. Like how Asur 1 became popular with word of mouth unlike a good film running in theatres. OTT has a bigger canvas,” he avers.