"Posham Pa Web Series Is A Kind Of Breaking Bad", Says ZEE5’s Psychological Thriller Series Star Mahie Gill

Suman Mukhopadhyay’s film for the streaming platform Zee5 might be based on gruesome facts, but it resorts to feeble fiction to deliver its thrills.

Posham Pa (the title refers to a children’s rhyme) has characters inspired by the real-life convicted serial killers Seema Gavit and Renuka Shinde. The half-sisters from Maharashtra are on death row for murdering at least five children.

Actresses like Mahie Gill, Sayani Gupta, Shivani Raghuvanshi and Ragini Khanna have done a commendable job by doing justice to the character.

It is also one of the locations where the cast and crew of ZEE5’s psychological thriller, Posham Pa, shot parts of the film. Mahie Gill plays the role of Prajakta Deshpande, a woman who got sucked into a life of crime, coercing her two daughters into living the same reality.

The film is based on a true story of the first two women in India who received a death penalty in 2014 for committing a series of murders.

Sharing her perspective, Mahie Gill said, “The story of Posham Pa is inexplicable. I still cannot fathom how circumstances can make someone so cruel. It is one of the most challenging roles I have essayed and when I heard the script, I decided to take it up almost immediately. We are now looking forward to it to premiere on ZEE5 and be available to a global audience.”

“I initially couldn’t believe someone could murder children. Why would anyone do that? Playing that character, too, was emotionally draining but I had to find a way to switch on and off. The gloomy setting really helped to play the dark character,” she says.

Despite the barbarity of the crime, as an actor, she had to think like a serial killer.

“My character has a lot of shades. From the age of 25 to 55 she donned various avatars, from a maid to a beggar to a sex worker. There is a lot of anger inside her. There is a sense of fear that exists before a person commits murder but that fear sort of diminishes with each murder. It’s kind of like the TV show, Breaking Bad”, says Mahie Gill.

Posham Pa released on August 21 on Zee 5.

Sayani Gupta, who was last seen in Article 15 (2019), says that the character of a serial killer was too good to turn down.

“It isn’t a role that comes around too often and working with Suman da, too, was something I have been planning for a while,” she says. She plays the character of Rekha, the elder daughter who has faced a rough and abusive childhood. Her circumstances have turned her into someone she never wanted to be.

Unlike Gill, however, Gupta says she wasn’t surprised when she read the script.

“I follow the news and people do all sorts of horrific things so it wasn’t surprising for me. Some things that people do are so inexplicable, gruesome and completely remorseless and heartless that it’s no surprise anymore,” she says.

Gupta also feels that the look of the characters played an instrumental role in telling the story. “There were scenes where we had absolutely no make-up at all. Our hair had to look disheveled and all of that helped,” she says.

Director Suman Mukhopadhyay said, “We are presenting a film that has multiple focal points. Truth and reality look so puzzling when seen from different perspectives. The script brings this out through a nonlinear treatment.

However, the actors have walked a distance to ensure their performance is power-packed. To portray the psychological labyrinth of the characters that travel a few decades is an immensely challenging task. Everyone has worked very hard in putting this together and I hope with Zee5’s massive reach, Posham Pa travels extensively.”