Definition of strong women has changed: Mirzapur’s Isha Talwar

“Ecstatic is the word,” begins Isha Talwar, who plays Madhuri Yadav and has joined the team for the second season. “We have all the reasons to rejoice. The shooting for Mirzapur 2 was a marathon. I asked the director about the number of days we shot Season 2 and he said we did it in 76 days. I think that took a lot of work from a lot of people,” she adds. Rasika’s character of Beena Tripathi was a huge success in the first season. However, the actress says that she was still nervous when she was back on the sets two years later. “I have watched the character graph growing, I have read the reviews and have seen people discussing it. Revisiting the character was tricky as it could at some point make me conscious about how others perceived this. The challenge for me was to stay true to the character and stick to what the script had to offer,” she tells us.

The women of the Mirzapur franchise, streaming on Amazon Prime, are often termed as strong-willed and are the strongest female on-screen characters that the audience has seen to date. As Isha goes to make tea for herself, Rasika explains, “Writing ‘strong-women characters’ is not only about the masculinity that these characters carry. It is about celebrating feminism, which I felt was missing in a few narratives I watched. With Mirzapur, some of that has been explored, for instance, Dimpy’s character (played by Harshita Gaur) because she is making choices for herself. It is not about performing stunts or shooting with guns. Good to see those things are changing with time.” Isha adds as she joins us, “The definition of strong has now changed. It is more intelligent, gentle, and intuitive, it’s nice isn’t it?”

As the series has gotten bigger this season and more violent too, we ask them if the makers are getting more liberty in conveying what they want to on the digital medium without the interference of the CBFC, Isha says, “There is a huge difference when it comes to exploring and venting. Unfortunately, in the digital medium, I see a lot of venting, which gives the feeling I had in mind for a long time, and now I have the chance to vent it. We need to space it out and find the right voice.” Rasika adds that filmmakers here have imposed self-regulation. “They certainly know what is needed for a story than just create something to grab eyeballs. We have filmmakers who are genuine when it comes to storytelling and our system by default sets it right. Personally, I feel, there are people who think a set of rules should be followed in storytelling, which curbs the artistic freedom.”