Filmmaker Robbie Grewal is getting much appreciation for his work on the Amazon MX Player series Made in India: A Titan Story. The series chronicles the rise of Tata’s watch brand Titan under the leadership of Xerxes Desai (Jim Sarbh). Interestingly, Robbie's directorial debut, Samay: When Time Strikes (2003), also starts with a Fastrack advertisement. “It just did not cross my mind at all that I made a film called Samay, and, now, a series about samay (time). Somebody told this to me the other day,” says Robbie before adding, “You could say that I unknowingly manifested the Titan series all those years ago.”
There are many other similarities between Samay and Made in India: A Titan Story. In both, the protagonists have revelations from mundane events that lead to important discoveries in their endeavours. Samay's cop Malavika (Sushmita Sen) realises a missing link in the murder case she investigates as she hears someone singing, ‘Aankhon Hi Aankhon Mein Ishara Ho Gaya’. Similarly, Xerxes Desai has breakthroughs during the development of the Titan watch from mundane observations. These moments show that a sudden shift in perspective while looking at everyday life can spark genius, whether it be a police officer's intuition or an entrepreneur's vision.
While Robbie Grewal is the writer and director of Samay, the scenarists for Made in India: A Titan Story are Karan Vyas, Kandarp Shroff, and Niraj Dasa. However, Robbie says that a director owns the material that they work on when they onboard a project. “Any good director would take the material in his hand and evolve it to his liking. The same applies to Made in India.”
For example, the audience knows that Xerxes and his team will eventually prevail over their obstacles and make Titan a success, but the series makes you curious as to how they will achieve this at each stage of the story. The makers use cliffhangers cleverly, such as at the end of episode five where Xerxes tells his team that it is all but over for Titan and the company might shut down in a few months. As the director explains, “If it tells the audience that Titan is successful in the fifth episode itself, why would they come to the sixth one? We changed the ending of the episode by putting that scene at the end to ensure audience engagement.”
Another interesting aspect of the series is that it steers clear of conventional underdog narratives, while making you root for the characters as you would with underdogs. For example, when a Swiss watchmaker insults JRD Tata (Naseeruddin Shah), saying Indians do not know how to make watches, you would want the latter to prove the former wrong and help make Titan a success. Robbie elucidates, “We have seen many stories of underdogs winning. A small person from a tiny colony starts a business and it becomes huge from a garage, for example, is a fantastic formula when done well. Not all formulas are bad.”
This uncommonness of the story is exactly what drew Robbie into the project. “Tatas made watches and even planes. So the audience might wonder, ‘We know this already, what is the big deal about an autobiographical story about them?’ However, Made in India breaks the grammar of typical rags-to-riches stories. Someone noted this in one of the reviews: that it is not MS Dhoni's story but rather Saurav Ganguly's.”
Speaking of icons, Made in India: A Titan Story brings back Naseeruddin Shah in a performance that is reminiscent of his peak work in Hindi cinema. “You do not direct actors such as Naseeruddin Shah. I brief him about the mood and the texture, and the brilliance of the man is that he gets it right the first time. He never forgets a line and never gets a character meter wrong in his head. He has a theatre background, so he comes to the set prepared, making you see JRD and not himself. It is very easy directing him because you do not do too much; you enjoy seeing him perform.”
If it is this easy, one wonders why the actor has not been at his best in Hindi cinema of late. Has directors not used him well enough? Giving all the credit for the appreciation for Naseeruddin Shah’s performance in the series to himself, Robbie says that if actors such as him go wrong on occasion, it has more to do with the screenplays. “If the writing is quite weak, you could still create magic as Naseeruddin Shah, but it might not be the same as his peak.”
At the same time, Robbie highlights the importance of script reading sessions involving the writers and the cast. “In this phase, many things come out in terms of what the actors want and what I would like to have from the characters. I might get some of the minute details wrong, because I look at the series as a whole, from a broader perspective, whereas the cast views it individually. So they will come with things which are so correct at times. It is an evolving process for me and the actors—a give and take, if you will.”
Many viewers compare Made in India: A Titan Story favourably to Scam 1992, the other big corporate drama from the Indian web series space. Interestingly, in either series, you root for the passionate protagonist, even though their methods are different. While Xerxes follows the law to reach his goals for Titan, Harshad Mehta (Pratik Gandhi) bends it to his will to achieve what he wants. Scam 1992 director Hansal Mehta recently praised Made in India: A Titan Story, calling it “a perfect feel-good series” and “a befitting ode to arguably the true architects of India.” Robbie Grewal also expresses his appreciation for Scam 1992. “It is a beautiful series. Harshad Mehta challenged the system and is morally corrupt, but he has a conviction that is on a different level to Xerxes and you root for him as well.”
Interestingly, Hansal also described Made in India: A Titan Story as a ‘hagiography’. Much like Jim Sarbh, his lead actor, Robbie also differs from this viewpoint. He explains, “One thing the series shows that reflects the reality at Tata is the freedom of failure. I do not know if any other company celebrates failure the way they do. Which is how it should be. As long as you try it hard enough, failure is okay.”
Speaking of which, the initial flops in his career made the director take up ad filmmaking for a few years. However, the filmmaker does not take this experience for granted and the experience has helped him with Made in India: A Titan Story. “My experience working on ads helped me understand the marketing lingo and get it right in the series. I also understand what marketing implies and what billboards mean. How the characters speak in terms of advertising and marketing is not forced.”
In some ways, with Made in India: A Titan Story, Robbie's career comes full circle. It is his first bona fide success, albeit in the OTT space, after multiple theatrical flops. Ironically, while the director’s failures include a film (Samay) that the audience regards ahead of its time now, the success comes for a series set in the distant past. “It is a lovely irony,” Robbie shares as he reflects on his career. Suffice to say, there is a time and place for everything in life and cinema.
