Review of Scam from 2003: Gagan Dev Riar is as fantastic as Telgi. His body language is resolutely ordinary—a face like millions of others in the throng, a bush-shirt bulging over a protruding stomach—but it conceals a razor-sharp intellect always thinking of ways to advance.
Scam 2003 Review of The Telgi Story
Rags-to-riches tales are always interesting, especially when they are driven by the ‘jugaadoo’ gumption and street smarts of heroes who remain likable and relatable even when they are obviously doing incorrectly. When you can fly, no one wants to be a steady, boring drone, but only a select few of us have the guts and the good fortune to go all the way.
We got the Harshad Mehta narrative from the Hansal Mehta-directed film “Scam 1992.” ‘Scam 2003’, based on Sanjay Singh’s book ‘Telgi Scam: Reporter’s Ki Diary,’ is the turn of stamp-paper forger Abdul Karim Telgi. It was directed by Tushar Hiranandani, and the show was led by Hansal Mehta. The 2020 show continues to rank well on the greatest Indian web series pole. Although Telgi was apprehended and put to death in prison, his “daring toh karna padega darling” schemes, which netted him unfathomable profits, exposed the flaws in the “system” that governs us and excludes the average person from positions of wealth and power.
Both Mehta and Telgi came from little and acquired everything—even if only briefly—which is why, even years after their deaths, there is still a lot of affection and pity for these thieves.
Though comparisons are odious, this new series will undoubtedly be compared to the first, which was a sharp, penetrating depiction of pre-liberalisation India, and how the Big Bull unerringly located all the sensitive spots to push on his euphoric trip to the top of the stock market. Pratik Gandhi had Zing as Harshad Mehta, and the whole performance was quite hilarious.
Stamp papers are not as interesting as genuine cash, which the flamboyant Harshad was manipulating and buying out, nor is the genius behind the stamp-paper scheme, a fruit trader from Karnataka with boundless ambition. And therein lies the challenge for the filmmakers: how do you make this one as entertaining as the previous one, when both the main protagonist and his cohorts–an unending series of complicit cops and corrupt netas eager to dip their greedy hands into Telgi’s ‘behti ganga’–are as tawdry as the crime they are committing?
Gagan Dev Riar is as fantastic as Telgi, his body language determinedly ordinary—a face like millions in the crowd, bush-shirt bulging over a ballooning stomach- which masks a razor-sharp intellect always thinking about how to go ahead. ‘Paisa kamaana nahin hai, banaana hai,’ he tells everyone around him, and even when an early friend and partner depart him, the rest of his family, including a loving wife and daughter, brother and mother, keep him sheltered by their trust in him.
Patches of boredom are visible by the second episode (five are out and will be followed by five more in a few weeks). Not to mention the problems Telgi faces in maintaining interest: how many times can we see a politician open his or her lips too wide? Telgi breaks through to an ultra-honest manager of the ‘ Sarkaari’ fortress-like Nashik facility responsible for making stamp sheets. But, more often than not, his buddies and the series rely on him to liven things up. Riar, mouth beautifully downturned when things aren’t going his way, eyes gleaming when they are, keeps our attention on him.
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