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Genre: Based on a True Story – Business

Platform: Amazon Prime

Director: Robbie Grewal

Time: 6 episodes x 50 minutes average

Cast:    Naseeruddin Shah (JRD Tata). Jim Sarbh (Xerxes Desai). Vaibhav Tatwawadi (Akash Bansal). Kaveri Seth (Megha Mhatre). Lakshvir Saran (Gaurav Dhar).

 Plot:  Surprised to discover that watch smuggling is a major activity due to the lack of any credible Indian brand of high quality, Xerxes Desai puts a proposal to manufacture high quality watches in India, to his mentor and friend J.R.D. Tata, the head of the Tata group, who is amused but doesn’t say anything. While on a visit abroad to explore the possibilities, JRD faces a personal insult by a Swiss precision watch manufacturer about India being unable to make any such high-quality precision watch. On his return, JRD gives the green signal to Xerxes. Desai gathers together a team that ultimately becomes the core group – Akash, Gaurav, Megha – that starts the process of setting up and manufacturing precision quartz watches with the Tata stamp of quality and dependability...

As a thumb rule, I avoid “sports movies”, “business success movies” as we know that the hero/ main protagonist will win in the end against all obstacles, hurdles, challenges, etc. He will be the one who will have multiple brainwaves while all the others around him / her stare at the sky and are motivated by the protagonist’s zeal and burning desire to bring forth the final result.  He/ she will overcome all personal and professional challenges with or without the support of people in his life. He / she is usually a very scrupulous/ honest person who follows all the rules of business and life . The Founder was probably the only film to break the rule as it showed Ray Kroc as a complete shit who stole the McDonalds brand name from the McDonald brothers, so much that they had to close their original restaurant and were unable to use their own name. ( Check out my take on The Founder at this link ).

This TV Series also follows this “business success story” template except that the core team is also shown contributing to the overall success story of Titan watches. This is not Xerxes ‘Zee’ Desai’s lone battle but that of his core team too who are as fired up as ‘Zee’ to get the final product into the Indian market, while facing multiple challenges.  So how much of this story is true? That will be the question on everyone’s lip, before starting the series. I like the series and since I have read the book, let me answer my own question in a fun way. Two of the five main characters in the TV series are “real” – Xerxes Desai and J.R.D. Tata. The rest are fully filmi composite characters (If you read the book, then you will know the real history).

Then why on earth was I smiling throughout the six episodes? Why on earth did I laugh out aloud at some of the silly, theatrical even ‘filmi’ devices in the story – like JRD himself refusing to wear a watch till the time Titan makes its first watch? And why on earth did I want to know what will happen next – so much that I almost binge watched the series?

Simple. Because of the emotional connect that the writing generates. Unlike all ‘foreign’ business success stories, this one has its heart in the right place, especially the constant references to an era when ‘smuggled watches’ were a sign of prestige and ‘local watches’ were generally ridiculed being a poor second cousin / okay quality. My personal experience will probably give a perspective, especially to those who were – er – not around in that era.

Sometime in my final year of college, 1980, I was presented an HMT Ajeeth watch with a green dial ( HMT is referred to as GMT in the TV series; click on the link to see how it looked). Now a watch itself was a prestige symbol, and a long-lasting watch, even more so (my father had the same mechanical watch for almost 40 years) and an HMT watch with its wide range was even a bigger prestige. On a visit to Singapore in 1982, I bought a Casio digital watch, which I used for a long time since the HMT had stopped working and couldn’t be repaired. Casio digital watch was the ‘hep thing’ in the early 1980s and Bombay’s DN Road had tons of smuggled watches being sold openly. Only sometime in the late 1990s did the famous Mozart Symphony No. 25 adorn my wrist by which time, I realised that not only did the Titan match in quality but also the price and feature range.

The TV series, somewhat follows this timeline and is on the dot when it comes to the Titan watches being widely available across India. Except that the story is full of dramatic incidents that we can only pass off as fully filmi. Eg – Xerxes and Aksah meet Haji Mastan? Who they discover is the king of the watch smuggling ring? Surely, they weren’t that naïve or that innocent. If as the book states, the core team had done its market research before entering the market, it surely wouldn’t have done something so foolish (and filmy). In the same way the “Titan Tune” – Mozart Symphony No.25 – wasn’t the result of JRD taking the entire team to a Western Classical Concert . Again this is a very filmi scene, but it still is nice to watch every character suddenly “connect” to THE tune that would make a lasting impression as The Titan Tune – especially after everyone is shown listening to multiple songs and tunes in various Indian languages with overall amusing results.

We can dismiss this and many other similar incidents as “creative liberty” that happily doesn’t detract from the story  but instead adds to the overall story of showing the emotional drive of the main characters. And it is on this emotional drive that the series is on target. That quality called as jazbaat  as the story telling that grabs you from the word go.

I have a problem with the overall underexposed even dull photography to depict those ‘gloomy’ times. All scenes inside the offices and anywhere else have a dank and gloomy look to it. The moment the two characters Megha and Gaurav were introduced, we immediately know that they will be ultimately married by the end of the TV series.  The real characters on whom they were based were already married when they joined the company ( at least the man was).

Despite such cliches, the TV series is heart warming and nice to see a real Indian success story without any hanky panky, due to the straight arrow guidance of JRD himself , played magnificently by Naseeruddin Shah. We know that JRD didn’t have to throw his weight around and THAT is PROJECTED amazingly by Naseer. A magnificent performance even though he doesn’t have as much screen time as Jimmy Sarbh’s endearing performance as the cranky, endearing, egoistic and finally human ‘Zee’. One would expect that the Head of Marketing would be an outgoing confident ‘Type A’ personality and this is probably the only blemish in the series, as Megha Mhatre comes across as a softspoken, somewhat diffident person. The foreigners are stereotypes – who have nothing but disdain for India and Indians. I was actually surprised to learn from the series (and the book) that “Andre Leuba” (actually the world-famous Swiss watch brand Favre Leuba) was acquired by Titan watches in 2011, which the Series shows truthfully in a small coda. (Titan sold off this acquisition in 2023).

The overall atmosphere of the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s is superbly recreated and the production design team should be lauded for their painstaking attention to detail in many of the scenes, especially those set in the 1970s and 1980s. The book on which this TV series is based covers the rise of the brand and its misadventures in 4 out of its 10 chapters.

What would be the best way to summarize the story ?  Simple. It is BASED ON A TRUE STORY (which means , less true story and more masala ; here the masala is in perfect proportion with the overall story. Not too much, not too little) Overall, this is an absolute FEEL-GOOD TV series that I absolutely endorse due to the overall superb performances and attention to detail and excellent production design, aided by appropriate songs from mostly 1950s, 1960s and 1970s film songs, which at times mirror the storyline.

Real history – 2 out of 5

Script – 5 out of 5

Story – 5 out of 5

Direction – 5 out of 5

Photography – 3 out of 5  

Production Design – 4 out of 5

Total – 4 out of 5