Not always does a sensational crime story manage to hold its intrigue through generations. The murder of the young and promising poetess Madhumita Shukla in 2003 is one such story. Inspired by the real-life incident, Discovery+ released their original documentary series Love Kills: Madhumita Shukla Hatyakand on February 9. Directed by Deepak Chaturvedi, the show unfolds a complex web of passion, politics, and human frailties that encircled the much-sensationalised murder.
Known for creating documentaries like Womb of the World, Deepak Chaturvedi has won multiple prestigious awards, including the Best Documentary Award at the Asian Television Awards in 2010. In a conversation with Indulge, the director lets us in on what makes the case a compelling story, the creative processes behind the show, and why true-crime dramas will never lose their appeal.
Tell us a bit about your new docuseries Love Kills: Madhumita Shukla Hatyakand.
It is a five-episode series on the murder of the Hindi poetess, Madhumita Shukla. She was in a relationship with Amarmani Tripathi, a powerful politician from Uttar Pradesh. Within hours of her death, the murder morphed into a whirlwind of politics, deception, high-profile investigations, and media frenzy. The series is about the theatre of the crime and the damage it has done to all those involved.
What is it in this murder case and its investigation that demanded to be presented as a docuseries?
Although, it was a sensational story when it broke out, so many finer points of the case and the characters involved are still not known. How were Madhumita, Amarmani, and Madhumani as people? How did their worlds collide and what impact did it have on them and those around them? When we started reading up on these, we found a lot of news articles – but they were not in-depth. The line of investigation pursued, the evidence, the court proceedings, the political context, and its subtext – there was a wealth of material for us to unpack.
What kind of research went into it?
Our process was three-tiered. First, we read up on all the media coverage. Second, we went through the investigation and court records in detail. The third phase was going out and meeting people. This field research was the most rewarding phase.
The trailer hints at the use of a lot of archival footage. What was its role in the story?
A strong archive drives the story both on an emotional plane and on the ‘crime reportage’ side of things, making revisiting the story seem more real. Because it was such a big case and private news channels were just beginning to take off at the time, a fair bit of news archives were available. All our contributors opened up their personal archives for us. There is so much you can learn from some of these personal archives – you get an insight into the lives of the characters.
Generally, how do you choose subjects for your documentaries, especially true-crime dramas?
Stories are an incredibly powerful medium to document our milieu. And just like any storyteller, I too am drawn to themes that disturb me or inspire me. In the true-crime space, I tend to look at subjects that have a strong character or where I feel there’s more going on within the story than is apparent – a sense of non-closure, of unfinished business. So, I want to explore those unmapped territories and take the audience with me through these journeys.
How do you make sure that you remain objective and do not let your personal biases about a case affect the narrative of a documentary?
As you spend more time with the story, you begin to become self-aware; your likes and dislikes begin to melt away. Generally, I do have an informed view of the cases but that has to wait for its turn to come in the process of storytelling. When you have taken the audience through all relevant scenarios and touched all vantage points – you make the audience a part of you and your team’s journey as storytellers. That is important for me. The biases, if any, are almost auto-filtered out then.
India has always had a strong audience base for out-and-out commercial crime dramas. But lately, more and more documentaries on crimes or crime dramas based on real events are being made here. Why do you think people have started consuming these kinds of stories so much?
True-crime (drama) has always been a popular medium in literature and cinema because in the world of true-crime (dramas), the individuals involved and their motivations, feed some primordial instincts within us. That has now begun to manifest itself in the appetite for well-researched documentaries. The challenge is to keep the interest alive without compromising the authenticity of the stories.
What are some of your upcoming projects?
I am working on a few documentary projects that are in different stages of development and are centred on themes of contemporary history, faith, and assassinations.
Streaming on Discovery+
Email: prattusa@newindianexpress.com
Twitter: @MallikPrattusa