Directed by : Hansal Mehta (10 episodes)

Yeh Bombay hai Bombay, yahan sab badal jayega par dariya wahi rahega.. toh bhayi main Dalaal Street ka dariya hoon. 


Spoilers ahead...


Based on the book 'The Scam' by Sucheta and Debashish, the story revolves around the rise and fall of a common man Harshad Mehta belonging to a middle class gujarati family, who got popular as the Bachchan of BSE. 

1st Episode begins with Sucheta Dalal (Shreya Dhanwanthary) learning about the financial fraud happening at SBI in April 1992 where Harshad Mehta (Pratik Gandhi) is the culprit before we go into the flashback. One of the fewest occasions where I was happy they followed a linear narrative (for majority) as it helps to stay with the ups and downs of Harshad's journey. 

I have got basically no clue of the Share Market terms, to an extent I find it really boring and to this day I don't know what 'market has crashed' actually means. This series did nothing to generate interest either, yet I was fully engaged in each and every episode because Hansal's focus always is on the human side, he wants you to observe each and every step Harshad takes. I did learn few terms though like Bear, Bull, BR, SGL and also never knew a 'Money Market' exists. 

Two ways this show wouldn't had worked or turned average, one was glorifying Harshad Mehta which some would argue they still did, I personally didn't feel so because there were enough moments shown  where you feel Harshad deserves what he is going through. The other factor was the dialoguebaazi mostly from Harshad doesn't feel like forced or wannabe, instead it adds more to his character who just lives life on his terms and takes risks even in most dire situations.

Pratik Gandhi delivers in what will be considered as one of the best performances ever, he gets basically everything right about Harshad, even though looks wise he may not resemble the real Harshad, its how much he gets the character traits right, whether its the struggle period as jobber at BSE or initial loss he goes through, or the change in his tone as he keeps stepping up the ladder of success. Even at times you could notice him sitting like 'Vijay Dinnanath Chauhan' (Amitabh Bachchan in 'Agneepath'), I am not sure if that was deliberate or he was so much into the character that little bit of same habit as Bachchan came in naturally. Ironically, Harshad's last moment at home comes when he is watching KBC with family.
 
What makes Pratik Gandhi's performance special (equal credit goes to Hansal too), is how he makes you root for him while you constantly in your mind utter words 'Don't do that Harshad, just listen once to your brother or Pranav Sheth and get out of this mess' because who doesn't love a common man reach great heights of success. Being a gujarati, he delivers hindi dialogues with a little gujarati flavour efficiently. At few places he even goes full gujarati with his brother and its fun to watch, though I hardly understood what the dialogue meant. He portrays the never ending greed angle (even keeps his company name as 'GrowMore') and also the revenge angle (mostly with BEAR and Tyagi-Kedia gang) beautifully. Note how he wants to enter the Money Market just because Ajay Kedia gets to his nerves at a party, or how he wants to learn Golf because a bank guy calls him out to stick to the sport his mind is good at. At one moment his brother is so frustrated that he suggests he would also love to become Prime Minister of India. Pratik also excels in making you feel sorry for the Harshad post the Scam, because you feel this Harshad has been so much mentally tortured in past 8-10 yrs that it has clearly taken a big toll over him. 

Shreya Dhanwanthary as the only female lead gets maximum screen time in a very male dominated series, where her character Sucheta even questions in an interview how she wants to break stereotypes and become a famous financial journalist. Her body language all the time is very much like Harshad, devoted to her work but for her success doesn't come at the cost of wrong doings. I did at times felt she was stuck with too much hatred for Harshad or atleast she walks the tight rope, but that mainly happens because there are almost no light moments between them, even at the dinner invite she calls out Harshad for what he is, and how he can't run even a grocery store forget running the country. Definately she is another good actor to look forward to in future. 

If Pratik and Shreya weren't enough, what makes this series outdo any other show you have seen in the past is the Supporting Cast, so many veterans even those with just one-two scenes are so brilliant that you just feel like applauding the casting director because most times these actors are either in cliched roles or just blink and miss cameos which isn't the case here. Hemant Kher as Harshad's brother is delightful to watch knowing he can foresee how much of a deep mess the family will be in and keeps warning Harshad but always unsuccessfully. 

Anjali Barot as Harshad's wife is the only female character apart from Sucheta who makes impact in all the small scenes with Harshad which are mostly lighthearted and bit romantic, and there's the burst out scene where she accuses Sucheta for being attracted towards a story and not the human. Chirag Bohra as Bhushan Bhatt is another great character, you can feel his pain in his angst against Harshad in the final episode. 

Jay Upadhyay as Pranav Sheth is a total fun character, be his laugh, use of 'darling' word, the dance move on 'de de pyar de' song or the close friend kind stature he forms with Harshad giving all kind of good advices. Kavin Dave as Rakesh, one of the three guys always roaming together in the BEAR gang plays a very enthusiastic character who infact went on to become next big name when the scam took the market down, we aren't shown that however to keep the focus only on Harshad. 


Anant Mahadevan is very effective as morally conflicted RBI governor in a no-nonsense role who uses his power in right ways to get the truth out in public. KK Raina as MJ Pherwani, playing head of NHB, a subsidiary of RBI, original Big Bull, another small role that is key to the downfall of Harshad, and also like Harshad, he fell due to the greed. 



Faisal Rashid as Debashis provides some comical moments, be it the 'chai making class' or constant reference to Sucheta's source as 'karanchand' or way he tries to get info out from the canteen of SBI. 

Nikhil Dwivedi as Tyagi is wonderful as a very calm and believer of the system in India that will never cause any trouble to him, in a way he is like Harshad Mehta, using the loopholes of system but in a classic way as one of Tyagi friends says 'Harshad is desi and classless'.  

There's Raghav Raj Kakkar as the Karamchand whose real name they never reveal, who helps Sucheta (and us) learn some important market terms and also what loophole exactly Harshad is exploiting. I didn't however understand why did he call to congratulate Sucheta on death of Pherwani. The ever reliable Satish Kaushik as Manu Mundra or BEAR, who hardly has a scene where he doesn't mouth a gaali. To be honest, Manu was the only character that I felt was totally sidelined in final 2 episodes and not shown at all considering the kind of rivalry he had with Harshad before the 1992 scam got revealed. 

Shadaab Khan as Ajay Kedia, if you remember Rani Mukherjee starrer 'Raja Ki Ayegi Baraat', he was the lead actor in that film, and he plays the character with a perfect attitude and infact I was feeling turned off too so not a surprise Harshad got irritated to an extent he entered Money Market just to show Ajay who is the boss. Mamik Singh as Citi Bank chairman, Ratan of  'Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar' in a interesting cameo where he saves Tyagi from going to jail. I wonder if its just me or did Mamik looked and dialogue accent wise sounded bit like Matthew McConaughey. 


Rajat Kapoor as Madhavan who leads the CBI investigation is terrific, I felt somewhat angry that his role gets limited because of the political involvement leading to his resignation, more of him would had been good. Love his final scene though calling out CBI director Tota/Popat for following the orders from the top. Vivek Vaswani as SBI chairman even in his 2-3 scenes is effective as someone who won't bow down to Harshad Mehta. Sharib Hashmi as Sharad Bellary, plays out the key scene well with how he reveals the name of  'Harshad Mehta' to Sucheta. And all other actors who play part of various banks have really done commendable job. 

There aren't any dull moments in this show, I would still recommend to binge watch first eight episodes and then have a little break before the final 2 episodes. The reason I say that is there is a major shift in proceedings and the pace because it covers mainly the freefall of Harshad so it takes some adjustment as a viewer which I did struggle a bit. Its not easy to watch a character always finding ways to bail out when everyone is trying to put you down, suddenly has no answer and falling deeper into the political trap. 

Among my favourite moments would be, Harshad's first day as Jobber and how he has already done research about what is BEAR and BULL. The dining scene at restaurant with Harshad's father not happy at him throwing a sort of daawat for quitting his Jobber job. Love how Harshad tells his friend investing in Stock Market isn't similar to cricket match fixing if you got full knowledge. Pherwani telling Harshad that the most valuable thing in this world is Trust, ironically in the end he went against his own 'trust' theory leading to his death. The expression on Bhushan face is priceless when he intentionally calls himself partner having a talk with Harshad at cricket match and Harshad misunderstands the partner reference with 'Ashwin'. 

The Income Tax raid scene, how Harshad is being cheesy and sweet, and I like how Hansal does the total opposite when CBI raids his house much later on. Love how RK Laxman at TOI  explains to Suchetra why common man is always a man and not a woman. Love the mixing of real life press conference scene of Jethmalani and Harshad with the reel one and a shocked Suchetra with song running 'ek raaz hai mere seene mein', just the way you pull out maximum drama out of a single scene. 

Writing and especially dialogues are really something you won't forget either, hard to even pick the best one-liners, 'Risk hai toh ishq hai' ofcourse is the one Harshad loved the most which wasn't even his original, taking it from his wife. Dalaal street comparison with Dariya and Harshad was another fantastic moment. Also, the one where Harshad says old or new school, everyone has one common subject 'Profit' which is his favourite subject. 'Cigerette' dialogue I think was my personal favourite and probably of many others ever since the trailer was out. 

The title theme is very addictive and is gonna stay with you for months, atleast it has with me. Also lovely use of 'Ek Chidiya' track, Special mention however goes to the fun songs chosen for the final scenes of some of the episodes, mostly 90s reference. 'Toofan' track was my pick of the lot that comes when Harshad and his family find Suchetra's article against Harshad on SBI fraud published knowing his life will get badly affected from here on. 'Yeh zindagi hai ek jua' was also well used, but the main highlight track has to be 'I am coming, you are going', the song used to introduce Madhavan and what is to follow, very hilarious and I had never heard this one before. 

The only flaw I found or nitpicking I could do was, we get to know almost nothing about the supporting actors personal life, every time they appear they are either talking about stock market or Harshad Mehta, but then was there a need for diversion when the story is entirely on Harshad Mehta? I would happily say no. Initially the Swami and political angle felt underplayed, but having given it a thought I feel they did it right, too much of politics wouldn't had been great viewing specially when its what you get completely in final 2 episodes.  

Scam 1992 has become my most loved Hindi webseries, previously it was Mirzapur. Not a surprise to see such a high rating on Imdb, the show works in every department and I have to say again that to get the best out of every actor involved is what you dream of. You just crave for a near perfect series like this. 

My Rating : 9.5/10