In this special episode of Awful and Awesome, Rajyasree Sen interviews director Nagesh Kukunoor and actor Amit Sial to discuss their new thriller webseries The Hunt: The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Case. 

Rajyasree opens up the discussion by describing the series, which is based on the investigation into the former prime minister’s assasination and finding the perpetrators, who were members of the Sri Lankan militant organisation Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

“I like the fact that it was not too emotional or too dramatic. It was… the way crime procedurals should be,” she says. 

Nagesh then talks about how he came about making the series and how producer Sameer Nair approached him with the idea for the series, with Anirudhya Mitra’s book Ninety Days: The True Story of the Hunt for Rajiv Gandhi's Assassins. 

Nagesh was initially reluctant because he didn’t want to do anything religious or political.

“Samir said this not even remotely political. [He asked me to] take a look at it because this actually reads like a true crime thriller…a police procedural, if you will. Then I did, and started formulating how I'd want to tell the story moving forward. I had a good idea that I could still steer clear of the landmines, not explore any of the political aspects associated [with it],” he says.

Amit, who plays the role of DR Kaarthikeyan, the IPS officer who headed the SIT that probed the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, talks about getting into the skin of the character by observing officers he met in real life.

“They’re as normal as we are. They don't get affected by the emotions of the case because they can't afford to, they can't get emotional. They have to be to the point. Over a period of time, when you are into this kind of a profession, things are not bound to hit you that hard as they would hit a normal person… They need to keep their wits together,” says Amit. 

This and a lot more.

Watch.