‘Mirzapur’ holds up a mirror to society—but is violence getting normalized in India?

There is something uncomfortable about watching Mirzapur: The Movie, which arrived in theatres on 4 September to do brisk business. The franchise has travelled a long way from its OTT screen to become a cultural phenomenon, with its familiar cocktail of guns, blood, revenge, power and the language of bhaukaal. But this time, I found myself viewing its violence differently, perhaps because we have been seeing more off-screen violence too.