Director's Cut: Neeraj Pandey reveals why he chose to create Secrets Of The Kohinoor

For centuries, dark secrets and mystery shroud one of the most beautiful and largest cut diamonds in the world, the Kohinoor. Creator Neeraj Pandey has joined hands with director Raghav Jairath and Manoj Bajpayee for a fascinating docu-series titled Secrets Of The Kohinoor. It will premiere on August 4 on discovery+.

Opening up about how the Secrets franchise was born, Neeraj shares, “We started with Secrets Of Sinauli: Discovery of the Century. It was our first instalment in the Secret franchise in association with discovery+. We got a fabulous response to the whole thing. I started my career in documentary so for me, it was homecoming. Understanding that the docu series format has changed so much over the years.Its not anymore that boring academic kind of an approach to storytelling it's gotten very dynamic.We have background score now. Earlier it would have sarod or sarangi track. We hit an opportunity to tell this fabulous story of Sinauli and now Kohinoor.” He adds, “Raghav has been assisting me and the natural progression for any AD is to become a director. He debuted as a director with Secrets Of Sinauli and this is his second project.”

The filmmaker is not directing films of late. When asked about it, he shares, “Nothing is keeping me away. We are working on something hopefully we will have a theatrical release. There is a film which I have directed. We will talk about it later.” When asked if he will screen Secrets Of The Kohinoor in schools, Neeraj says, “We will look at both the responses. We didn’t plan it with the first part also but eventually we came to know that Secrets Of Sinauli was being screened in different institutions. Naturally, the way forward for this one will also end up in a screening.”

One wonders what excited Neeraj that he jumped onto Raghav’s idea of doing this project. “I react pretty much to anything exciting. I don’t take a lot of time to understand its merit. The best things in life are the bigger stories. They have to hit you in the gut at the first instant. You have to realise within two to three minutes that yes, this is a great idea. I have never slept over an idea and in the morning processed it if the basic premise of the subject is good,” he shares.

On a parting note, he concludes, “I watch a lot of documentaries whether it is from sports or crime as these are my favourite genres. I love The Last Dance, which was on Michael Jordan. It was a fabulous documentary.”