Delhi is huge but it’s a very small place for its affluent, observes one of the characters in The Great Indian Murder. Try as they might, they can’t help running into each other.
Indeed, Delhi is no larger than a pond in the Disney+ Hotstar series. The conspiracy thriller dunks each one of its characters in the fetid depths of this pond, pulling them out one by one to examine their individual stories before hurling them back in.
To a cliched interplay of politics, money and crime, director Tigmanshu Dhulia brings an urgency ripped from the headlines. The show is based on Vikas Swarup’s 2008 novel Six Suspects. Dhulia and co-writers Vijay Maurya and Puneet Sharma update the material to include events that characterise the present situation, such as the falsification of truth and the framing of innocents for political gain.
The locations include mansions with tasteful art in the background (Amrita Sher-Gil’s Three Girls, Jeff Koons’s Balloon Dog sculpture) and despicable people in the foreground. Vicky Rai (Jatin Goswami) is a composite of every entitled scion in recent history. Being the son of Chhattisgarh’s home minister Jagannath Rai (Ashutosh Rana), Vicky gets off easily enough for killing two sex workers. At a celebration to celebrate his exoneration, Vicky is shot dead.
The possible killers include the actor Shabnam (Paoli Dam), only one among the women Vicky has treated horribly. Mohan Kumar (Raghuvir Yadav), a corrupt ex-bureaucrat who been affected by dissociate identity disorder and claims he is Mahatma Gandhi, has also suffered Vicky’s contempt.
Journalist Arun Deshmukh (Amey Wagh) wants to relieve the planet of the human virus that is Vicky Rai. The thief Munna (Shashank Arora) has a hidden connection to Vicky. Jagannath, whose political fortunes are threatened by his son’s scandal-mongering ways, isn’t above board either.
And then there is Eketi (Mani PR), an Andamanese tribal who has arrived in Delhi in search of the stolen idol of his community god.
A regular Delhi potboiler gets a contemporary edge with some of the characters and events. The investigators include police officer Sudha Bharadwaj (Richa Chadha). That she shares her name with the activist who was jailed for over three years on dubious charges of plotting to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi is no coincidence.
In Swarup’s novel, Jagannath represents Uttar Pradesh. The makers of The Great Indian Murder use the formation of the mineral recourse-rich Chhattisgarh in 2000 and the Naxalite movement to add a few more skeins to Swarup’s yarn.
The show’s Sudha Bharadwaj is as pragmatic as she is a truth-seeker. Sudha has to conduct her investigations in tandem with the Central Bureau of Investigation’s Suraj Yadav (Pratik Gandhi). Suraj gets his orders directly from Jagannath’s mentor (Vineet Singh), which pushes the quest to nail Vicky’s murderer in a prescribed direction.
The show’s title holds out the promise of excavating the corpse of Indian democracy itself. The Great Indian Murder follows in the footsteps of Pataal Lok and Tandav, which similarly use murder to investigate the capital’s power structures.
By making Vicky’s murder a sideshow to more worrying events, The Great Indian Murder goes further than its immediate predecessors. But the writers’ struggle to manage a never-ending list of characters and contrivances soon becomes evident and exhausting. The mandate to deliver a twist in every third scene and connect this person with that far-flung development distracts from the larger political critique.
A few of the promising tracks die a quick death, presumably to be resurrected in the second season. Other changes to the source material are more welcome.
The first season focuses on two of the most vulnerable suspects. The stories of Munna and Eketi reveal a sobering view of the republic from its margins.
The most egregious suspect in Swarup’s novel is Larry Page, a stereotyped Texan who keeps saying “Howdy”. Larry Page is mercifully a fleeting presence in The Great Indian Murder, but hold that thought. Since the nine-episode series ends without revealing Vicky’s killer, there is hope yet for the man who shares his name with the co-founder of Google.
As is the case with many of Tigmanshu Dhulia’s projects, an unwieldly narrative contains solid performances from major and minor cast members and potent moments of wit and wisdom.
Among the most compelling actors is Richa Chadha, whose Sudha is a judicious mix of toughness and thoughtfulness. Ashutosh Rana and Jatin Goswami have some of the most crackling scenes. The transactional exchanges between father and son suggest that the family itself is the root of all corruption.
Eketi, the subject of racism and ignorance, is a fascinating character despite being unidimensional on the page and in the show. Mani PR movingly channels the pathos of this Indian who has fallen off the map in literal and figurative ways.
Pratik Gandhi nails Suraj’s acumen as well as a scene in which the unflappable Suraj loses his cool when confronted with one of the show’s many sexually aware women.
Not all the female characters work. What’s with the voluptuous sister-law of Sharib Hashmi’s character, who covers her head but makes sure to wear her blouse low?
For all its grandiose ambitions, that’s where The Great Indian Murder often finds itself – in the sordid section of the pond, where everyone is on the take, including Sudha Bharadwaj.