Neeraj Pandey, the acclaimed director behind the massive success of Khakee: The Bihar Chapter, has returned with a new, much-anticipated season of the series – Khakee: The Bengal Chapter. At the trailer launch, Pandey shared his excitement for the new season and revealed the reasons behind choosing Kolkata (Calcutta) as the setting. His passion for the city and its history with his previous films clearly shines through.
Pandey spoke candidly about why he decided to set the second season of Khakee in Kolkata, a city that holds personal significance for him: "I have been trying to find an excuse to come back to this city in some form or the other ever since my second film... be it Special 26 or Dhoni... and now we have this 7-episode series based in Kolkata," he said. The director explained that his deep connection to the city made it an obvious choice to set Khakee: The Bengal Chapter.
"After the massive success of the Bihar Chapter, it was clear that we would come back for season two. It made sense to set it in a place familiar to me, and Kolkata became the obvious choice," he continued. Pandey expressed his excitement about bringing the unique cast and crew together for the new season, adding, "The desire to bring this fantastic cast together and the fantastic crew that we had was equally tempting. I am proud of the effort we have managed to pull off, and it’s a big moment for all of us."
When discussing the process of casting and development, Pandey recalled the early stages of creating the Bengal chapter: "When it was decided that the second season of Khakee would be set in Bengal, the first thing we had to do was find the right writer and director. I knew Debattama for a long time and enjoyed our conversations. He was the first person to come on board, and he started writing the story. We did research, and the scripting took around 6 to 8 months," he revealed.
Pandey also emphasized that the team worked closely on the script before finalizing the cast. "While we were halfway through the writing process, we started discussing the cast names. What we have today is something very dear to us, and we are incredibly happy with the outcome," he said.
In an interesting reflection on the global appeal of the show, Pandey emphasized the importance of telling human, universal stories: "You don’t think, ‘I will stun the global world,’ but you make the story, and if it appeals locally, it will travel. That's what we hope with all our stories – they must be human, very universal, and then the world will be the audience."
Reflecting on the success of the Bihar Chapter, Pandey explained that the team knew they had to raise the bar for the second season. "Once we had the reception for the Bihar Chapter, we knew we had to raise the bar. We had to at least match the standard of storytelling. We knew that the Bengal chapter would come with a lot of expectations."
The series featuring Jeet Madnani, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Saswata Chatterjee and Parambrata Chatterjee is directed by Debatma Mandal and Tushar Kanti Ray. Showrunner Neeraj Pandey has co-written the script along with Debatma Mandal and Samrat Chakraborty.
Khakee: The Bengal Chapter premieres on March 20 on Netflix.