Mumbai, August 27, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Actress Kareena Kapoor Khan says her upcoming film Daayra took her beyond the familiar Mumbai she has known all her life, while also pushing her into unexplored creative and social territory.
Kareena, who was born and raised in Mumbai, said that despite spending her entire life in the city and travelling extensively across India, working on Daayra introduced her to places and aspects of Mumbai she had never encountered before.
“I was born in Mumbai. Having lived here all my life; and having travelled extensively across India, I thought I knew most of the city and the country through my life’s journey so far. But the journey of Daayra took me to unseen and unvisited places. And that’s just the geography,” she said.
The actress said the film also expanded her understanding of society and challenged her creatively. Drawing on her background as a student of sociology, she said she had come to understand that life and society cannot simply be viewed in terms of black and white.
She described Daayra as a story that enters and attempts to dismantle those grey areas, while also exploring the idea of duality through its two central characters.
Kareena plays DCP Ajooni Kohli, while Malayalam star Prithviraj Sukumaran portrays DCP Raman Kumar. She called the casting of the two actors from the Hindi and Malayalam film industries a “dream come true”.
According to Kareena, the film draws inspiration from several real incidents that have taken place across India rather than being confined to a particular city or state.
She described Ajooni as stoic and difficult to read, saying the character can “crack open situations and people with a smile”. Raman, in contrast, is driven by what she called a “caged rage” and rarely smiles. She described the two protagonists as the “Ying and Yang of Daayra”.
In a social media post, Kareena said playing Ajooni had made her confront ideas she might not always want to think about. She credited director Meghna Gulzar with allowing audiences to explore the film’s moral and social complexities without telling them what to think.
“Some stories need women behind them, women within them, and all of us willing to listen,” Kareena wrote.
The trailer will be released on August 31, while Daayra is scheduled to arrive in theatres on September 18, 2026.
FOLLOW NOW
