(Left to right) Raj Nidimoru, Suman Kumar, Manoj Bajpayee and Krishna DK
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
“Until five months back, I was telling DK (of Raj and DK, the creators of The Family Man) that people will like it,” writer and director Suman Kumar recalls, a day before the show is out. But now, anxiety is kicking in.
“Can we not do the writers’ room today?” he asked DK. DK calls him to check what happened.
“What do you mean what happened? The show is dropping. I’m nervous,” he admits.
Suman Kumar, who has written the much-acclaimed and loved show from the first season, turned director this season along with Tusshar Seyth (a long-term associate of Raj and DK who has also worked on the show since Season 1) and also hired two screenplay writers — Nikhil Gonsalves and this writer — to divide the load.
A still from The Family Man
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
“It just makes it quicker. The story beats, tone and treatment are already fleshed out in the Bible and you guys have already seen the show, so you kind of know,” Suman explains the decision.
I try to get him to open up about that season cliffhanger with a “What have you done?” — the question most likely on people’s minds. He laughs. He’ has anticipated this moment for a while.
Did he always know this was going to happen? “I always knew that in one of the seasons, he will go rogue and instead of high-end technology he will have to rely on human intelligence,” he says.
Not that he had always planned it season-wise, but Suman believes it is probably a four-season show. “It’s not official, but it will be good to have a Season 4. When I write, internally we always discuss what happens next season.”
A still from Farzi
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Is he worried about spoilers in the age of social media? “It’s the nature of the beast. There are shows that drop one episode a week, like Slow Horses, and there’s The Family Man or Farzi, where we drop all episodes together and people watch it all in one go and decide to tweet. We can only expect that fans don’t ruin it for others and have a self-imposed moratorium.”
Three weeks, he considers, before settling for ten days, maybe.
“These days people text on the phone even while watching the movie, I find it abhorrent,” says Suman, adding that it is impossible to regulate spoilers today.
The writing room for this season generates 10 drafts of each episode — the first few drafts by screenwriters are rewritten by the room and the showrunners, and finally there is a production docket with additional details that need to be in frame.
“Of course, the last draft is the editing. A screenplay is not just a literary pursuit. It’s a technical document that informs the whole team what is happening. As someone said, it’s an invitation for a performance.”
One of his favourite moments this year, he says, was writing the father-daughter scene in the later episodes. Being a director, he also got to shoot the scene too.
Does he find writing for his solo projects different from collaborative writing with Raj and DK? “It’s always a collaborative process whether you like it or not,” says Suman.
Even for Raghu Thatha, he says he had taken the help of local writers, and he is used to working with writers on different projects. For Farzi, he teams up with Raj, DK and Sita Menon. And then there’s Sumit Arora, who does dialogues. “Even my Hindi has gotten better in the last few years,” he laughs.
Coming up next for him is Farzi Season 2. The writers’ room is buzzing again.
Sudhish Kamath wrote the screenplay for episodes 3 and 4 of The Family Man Season 3. The show is airing on Prime Video.
Published – November 21, 2025 01:40 pm IST