Actor Bhuvan Arora is not losing sleep over carrying a show on his shoulders. “No, pressure kills creativity. I don’t take no pressure. There is no pressure on me that never has been, which is why, you know, I’ve always enjoyed my journey,” he said with an easy smile, speaking to Connected to India’s Himanshu Verma ahead of the release of Janaawar – The Beast Within.
The ZEE5 Global crime thriller, streaming from September 26, marks a new milestone in Bhuvan’s career. Best known for his breakout performance in Farzi, he now plays Sub-Inspector Hemant Kumar, a policeman from the tribal Chukwa community who finds himself entangled in a chilling investigation in a remote Chhattisgarh village.
But for the actor, the weight of being “the lead” does not define the craft. “When I was doing a five-minute role, I would still put in the same amount of hard work that I put into this. When I’m doing, so to say, the leads. I often refrain from using terms like these because I feel that, you know, it’s just a perspective through which the story is being told. Because the minute you start to think of yourself as the lead or the protagonist, or for the lack of a better word, the hero of the show, you sort of drift away from the reality of the character. And that is what restricts you from making it as human as possible. So, but yeah, to cut the long story short, no pressure, only fun. That’s what I’m here for.”
The series is set in Chhand, a fictional village in Chhattisgarh, where peace is shattered by a string of gruesome murders. One of the corpses is found without a head, and the mystery deepens with missing gold and a vanished man.
“It’s basically the story of a small village, which is named Chhand, where a series of murders are happening. And it’s not a village where incidents like this are common. So it rarely happens. And now, you know, we are in a time where it’s happening back to back with more than one murder that you can see in the trailer also. And ironically, one of the heads of the bodies is missing. So it’s basically an amalgamation of a lot of different factors, mythology, crime, investigation, also discrimination on the basis of caste, and a lot of layering that went into writing of the show and the character as well,” he said.
That layering is what drew Bhuvan to the part. Unlike conventional crime dramas, Janaawar blends investigation with mythology and social realities. “It’s not like, I at least have not seen any other cop drama like this. It’s layered with a lot of other things apart from the crime investigation, which basically most of the shows that I’ve been witnessing, you know, just sort of restricted themselves to. It’s got to do a lot with mythology. It’s got to do a lot with the inner demons that a person faces, which is why the title of the show is The Beast Within. It’s basically, you know, understanding of the fact that being sensitive is not a weakness. It’s actually a superpower. And it’s your duty as somebody powerful to protect somebody who’s underprivileged. And it has a lot to say and not in a very preachy way. And it beautifully sort of combines mythology, crime and the whole system of belief in God. And questions his existence also during the show.”
Bhuvan also pointed out a detail many missed — the title itself. “We have called it Janaawar and not Janwar. Because the region in which we had shot the show and where the show is based actually, they don’t call it Janwar there, they call it Janaawar in a big desi lingo. So that’s what we’ve named the show also.”
For the actor, the challenge went beyond the script. Known for his intense roles in Chandu Champion and The Test Case, he saw in Hemant Kumar a chance to explore both familiar ground and uncharted territory. “The lingo is very different. So I’m an actor who really likes to work on the language, I actually enjoy picking up new languages a lot myself. So the scale, the locale, the community, the mythology bit of it is something that I’ve never explored.”
Speaking about donning the uniform once again, following The Test Case, Amaran and Chandu Champion, he said, “The uniform bit, I don’t know if we can call it is like a common factor or not, because I’ve always done the army uniforms, the first time I’m doing the police uniform, and there’s a lot of difference being an army officer and being a police officer. As an individual, you know, my the first image that comes to me when you say police is I you often get scared, right? Oh, my God, why is police here? What is police doing here? It’s a very common phenomenon to be scared of police, you know, because the representation of cops… the police is either the good guy or the bad guy, they’re never the great guy, which I feel is not the truth. They’re absolutely as human as everybody else. And I’ve tried to humanize the character of Hemant as much as I could, wearing the uniforms. And also, I’m trying to make it as relatable as possible as the guy who you can approach and not be scared of.”
Born and raised in Delhi, Bhuvan always knew he wanted to be part of cinema, even if the dream seemed unrealistic to those around him. “Always, deep down, always, but always shy to express it out loud. But yeah, always deep down, I was fascinated by cinema from the very first day that I saw a movie, I wanted to be a part of it. But it was often laughed upon because I had no relatives in the movies, obviously. And in fact, I remember very categorically back in the day when I was, I think in ninth standard, a couple of people had come for career counseling to my school. And they asked me, what do you want to be when you grow up? I said, I want to be an actor. And the whole class laughed on me. And I sort of took it too personally. And it also sort of made me a little vengeful at that point of time that I’m going to become an actor and show everybody. But that’s not why I became. Eventually I sort of fell in love with the craft. And it kept me going because vengeance definitely can’t be a long term thing for anybody to be in the profession.”
After graduating from FTII, he moved to Mumbai and slowly carved his path. His classmates and teachers who once doubted him are now supportive. “Everybody is now supportive and a lot of friends who weren’t really friends have connected back, claiming to be friends,” he said with a laugh.
Along the way, Bhuvan has worked with some of the industry’s finest. The Test Case, released in 2018, remains deeply personal because of his late father, an army officer. “That show actually was very special to me because that’s the first time I actually wore the uniform. And my father always wanted me to join the forces. And he was alive back then. My father passed away in 2019. And I feel that that show, irrespective of what I learned from my co-actors around, will always be very, very special to me because my father got to see me in the uniform, which he really, really wanted always.”
His collaboration with Shahid Kapoor in Farzi also left a mark. “I became like a younger brother to him or I’d rather say he became like an elder brother to me. I would always seek for advice of things, you know, that can be done, can’t be done, because he’s obviously way more experienced than I am. The first day we met on the sets of Farzi, I told him one thing that think of me as your younger brother, Ishaan. And if I ever make a mistake, please do not refrain from telling me. And I would love to have your advice on each and everything that I do. And you’ll be very kind if you do so. And he sort of obliged and he was always very nice and very cordial with me. I learned a lot from him how to balance your professional and personal life. That’s a teaching I got from Mr. Shahid Kapoor. And I shall always have it with me.”
As Janaawar – The Beast Within readies for release, Bhuvan hopes audiences will connect not just with the suspense but with the themes at its heart. “It’s shot very well. The locales are very, very beautiful. The places where we had shot some of the visuals, you can obviously see in the trailer as well, are very, very good. And it’s a visual treat for people who enjoyed that. And I also feel that I’m also donning the uniform, police uniform for the first time. So people who admire my work can also watch it for me.”
Produced by Aarambh Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. and directed by Shachindra Vats, the series also stars Bhagwan Tiwari, Atul Kale, Vaibhav Yashvir, Eshika Dey, Vinod Suryavanshi, Amit Sharma, Badrul Islam and Deekshha Sonalkar Tham.
With Janaawar, Bhuvan Arora is not just playing another cop; he is telling a story that blurs the lines between crime, faith, and the human condition — and for him, it is all fun, not pressure.
