Probably the best getaway which has occurred as an escape from the boredom of COVID 19 lockdown is binge-watching various movies and series at home. A few years ago, the Indian audience was admiring several international shows like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Stranger Things, and so on. However, in recent times, the Indian content space on streaming platforms has grown with promising stories, which emerged in a mass Indian audience's attention in Indian web series. And the latest Indian web series has made the audience sit up and hail the skills of Indian content-creators, and this show is “Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story”.

This remarkable web series is currently streaming on the Sony LIV platform. But the most interesting fact about this web series is that it has smashed the IMDB rating records and grabbed one of the primary positions on the list of IMDB's top-rated series. And one more fascinating thing about the show is that it has left behind the record-breaking and remarkable ratings of other popular shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and Chernobyl. These International shows are popular in the entire world with a large base of a global audience. Yet, Scam 1992 has got an average score of 9.6/10, which is higher than GOT that has 9.2 ratings, Chernobyl with 9.4 ratings, Breaking Bad with 9.5, and Planet Earth II with a close 9.5 ratings on IMDB.

Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story is directed by Hansal Mehta, starring Rajat Kapoor, Hemant Kher, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Anant Mahadevan, and Pratik Gandhi among others. The web series is adapted from journalist Sucheta Dalal and Debashish Basu's book ‘The Scam: who won, who lost, who got away’. It introduces the story of the stockbroker Harshad Mehta who shivered the entire stock market of India with his scam and made a massive disruption. The web series focuses on Rs. 5000 crores share market scam carried out by Harshad Mehta. The episodes in this web series are all 50-minutes long as the series sustains the audience to deliberately understand the story and exist in the life of Harshad Mehta.

This web series has been a revelation to the audience in the country and idolized the actor Pratik Gandhi who headlined the series to fame. In an interview with Hindustan Times, actor Pratik Gandhi said, “People now want to know about me but, I have been around for the last 15 years. So, when I am told that this has happened to me overnight, my reply is that ‘This night was 15 years long for me’. Now, many doors have opened.”

The other side of the coin is that the ratings of Scam 1992 are based only on approximately 20,000 votes. This rating can fluctuate, as more votes will be added. And other big shows like Game of Thrones and Chernobyl are based on more than 10,00,000 views, which has a global audience base. Even the director of the series, Hansal Mehta contradicted the reports of Scam 1992 breaking records with IMDB ratings and called them statistically inaccurate in a tweet. But what matters is that this new Indian web series has stretched the lines of Indian content on digital platforms and gave a tough fight to such grand and widely popular international shows. And thus, ‘Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story’ has become one of the must-watch Indian shows of all time.

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Reference:

(www.hindustantimes.com / www.m.imdb.com / Wikipedia)