Little Things: Love, reality and chill in the time of Netflix
The adventures of Dhruv and Kavya, the couple of Little Things, continues on Netflix. In season two, Dhruv Sehgal, who plays Dhruv, and is also the writer of the web series, moves on from the honeymoon period in the couple’s life to a more intense one with discussions and arguments. “I hope fans think it is organic,” said Sehgal. “They are struggling to figure themselves out as to who am I in this relationship.”
What stands out most in Sehgal’s writing in season two is his acute understanding and sensitive handling of Kavya’s perspective. Sehgal said he spoke to some of his female friends in the corporate sector to get answers on “what they go through, why the need to prove something, and when you have it why do you enjoy it so much”. “I am both the characters, I identify with Kavya’s ambition,” added Sehgal.
The son of diplomats, Sehgal loves the work of writer Anton Chekhov and movies of Alexander Payne and Mike Leigh. “I like the zone where ordinary people go through extraordinary things which may not seem grand but for them they are,” he said. “I like to search for the beauty in the ordinary.” After finishing his graduate studies in Pune, he attended film school in Mumbai. There he had a three-and-a-half-year stint with documentary filmmaker Jaideep Varma on two films.
“The desire to see things from a real perspective comes from there,” he added.
The key reasons for the show’s popularity, apart from Sehgal’s endearing portrait of the life of a live-in couple in their twenties, are the authentic performances by Sehgal and Mithila Palkar (Karwaan) who plays Kavya. Talking about it, Sehgal said, “We don’t aspire to have great chemistry and don’t think much of it. I think what makes it easier is that we relate to these two characters.” Palkar credits Sehgal’s writing for making it easier to achieve the comfort level. “We sat down together before we started shooting,” she says. “He writes them in his tonality and allows me to make them my own.”
After Sacred Games and Ghoul, Little Things is a much-welcomed lighter original for Netflix India. The show, feels Palkar and Sehgal, will resonate with Netflix’s international subscribers too given the universal topics of love, relationship drama and ambition. “From what I have seen of Netflix originals if they are local and authentic, then they work,” said Sehgal. “There needs to be the right amount of exotica but they need not be exotic.”
(Courtesy of Mail Today)