Up close with Gagan Dev Riar and Sana Amin Sheikh, who headline the web series Scam 2003: The Telgi Story
Sheetal
The wait is finally over! After Hansal Mehta’s successful outing, Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story, in 2020, the audience has been waiting for its sequel. The second part brings the story of Abdul Karim Telgi, who was involved in a counterfeit stamp paper scam in 2003. Titled Scam 2003: The Telgi Story, this one stars actor Gagan Dev Riar.
Having worked in critically acclaimed web-series Not Fit, feature film Sonchiriya and BBC/Netflix series A Suitable Boy, directed by Mira Nair, Gagan says, “I didn’t believe for some time when Hansal sir called me to offer the role. At that time, I was out somewhere and was so surprised that I stopped for a while, and time stopped for me to.”
Much like Gagan, his co-star Sana Amin Sheikh, who is playing the character of Telgi’s wife, was also excited, as this big project happened to be her digital debut after having worked in television for many years. She says, “I couldn’t have asked for a better OTT debut. It’s uncanny that I was watching the series in 2021 when I got a call for the audition of this one.”
Weighty affair
Dev was in perfect physical shape when he was cast for the series, but immediately knew that to impersonate a real-life character, he had to change. “I had to gain 19-20 kilos for the role and started looking just like him. Not many videos were available on Telgi, so we had to rely on pictures that were readily available.”
Both the actors were aware of the Telgi scam before signing the series. Dev explains, “When the scam broke out, I was in college. I know as much details as a common man would know through newspaper articles, but I didn’t have this idea as to how he managed to create fake stamp papers, and other details.”
Dev feels that often when a series or film like this is made, it is perceived that the act is to whitewash his acts or glorify him, which isn’t true. “Yes it was a crime and the person behind that should get punished. But there are other aspects to the story too. I know that some people say that we are glorifying the criminals, but I do believe that we are smart enough to understand the difference between good and bad.”
Different turf
Sana found the working style pretty different from television. “Having been the central character in TV shows that are shot for 12-13 hours a day, we never saw it as an unhealthy working style. But shooting a series with so many characters involved, the waiting period used to be a lot. This is different. But at the same time, it was phenomenal watching other actors perform, whom you had always seen on big screens.” Sana plays a mother and a Muslim woman for the first on screen. She adds, “It’s very relatable, as I have seen my mother and grandmother don the head cover in a certain way. Also, the costume designer has done a phenomenal job.” Scam 2003 is directed by Hansal Mehta and Tushar Hiranandani, and is currently streaming in SonyLIV.
