Mumbai: Filmmaker Hansal Mehta said Monday his upcoming web series Scam 1992 – The Harshad Mehta Story serves twin purposes. The web series relives an era gone by. It also gives a cautionary tale about what the future holds.
Scam 1992 follows the life of stockbroker Harshad Mehta. He single-handedly took the stock market to dizzying heights, and also led to his catastrophic downfall.
The 10-episode web series is based on journalists Debashis Basu and Sucheta Dalal’s book ‘The Scam’.
Mehta was talking to reporters over a virtual press conference Monday. He said Scam 1992 chronicles a story which continues to be of importance even after two decades.
“I can’t think of a more relevant story for the times we are living in. We have seen series of scams, which are sort of mirror images of the Harshad Mehta scam. It (the series) talks about an era where I was growing up and still hadn’t become a filmmaker,” Mehta said.
“At the same time it is almost like a telling of the future. It is talking about what the system, if not mended, might make people do. The system doesn’t seem to have mended. There’s scam on scam. This is an important story, a timely warning about the times we are living in,” Mehta added.
The series is led by actors Pratik Gandhi and Shreya Dhanwanthary. Satish Kaushik, Sharib Hashmi, Anant Mahadevan, Nikhil Dwivedi, KK Raina, and Lalit Parimoo are part of the ensemble cast.
Mehta is known for helming sociopolitical films, including Shahid, starring Rajkummar Rao, and Manoj Bajpayee-led Aligarh. The director however, said the enormity of Scam 1992 was a challenge.
“I’ve told many true stories but to put this kind of long-form writing on screen was a huge challenge. It was perhaps the biggest, single largest challenge that I’ve had after making almost 15 feature films,” informed Mehta.
With the titular character, Mehta director said the team tried to bring ‘in some frailty’ while writing, performing and staging scenes.
“I like to approach a character from a non-judgemental perspective. This is because situations, circumstances and deeds are eventually perceived as positive or negative. The idea is to show things as they happened and let the audience make their own judgements,” stated Mehta.
“I have made a living out of showing flawed characters on screen. Harshad was less flawed than my last outing ‘Omerta’, where Rajkummar played Omar Saeed Sheikh. Harshad is like a saint compared to him,” Mehta added.
Scam 1992 is slated to start streaming from October 9.