Scam 2003 : Telgi Story, Volume  2 Is  The Real Meat Of The Matter

• Scam 2003: The Telgi Story, Volume 2(SonyLiv, 5 Episodes)

Rating: ****

For those out there lost in the OTT jungle of  gangsterism and scams, Telgi Story Volume 2, produced by Applause Entertainment  which  began in September , reaches a compelling  culmination  two months later when Abdul Karim Telgi meets his nemesis.

But at what cost?

For Telgi as played by the invisibly riveting Gagan Dev Roar, trouble kicked in hard when he decided to play the vulgar money flaunter in a dance bar. The five concluding volumes, all showcasing a wealth of  plotting excellence without making a song and dance of it,  chronicle the sharp and jagged edges of the  corruption  trap Telgi lays down for the powerful political lobby, coming back to prick him in the places where it hurts the  most.

As the saying goes, if you hang around pricks for long, you get pricked sooner or later.As the drama in the second season—can we really call it that since it seems like one  season of 10 divided by two—unleashes a feast of fettered fury  we realize  how easy it is for the  immoral  social climber to take a  corrupt  bureaucracy into  confidence, only to be kicked hard  by the very mouths that Telgi fed with a feast .

For me  Scam 2003, The Telgi Story is the  ultimate do-it-yourself  kit on corruption. The stamp paper scam got bigger each time Telgi’s  greed  multiplied and took  monstrous mis-steps. The show scores resounding  success in showing  the rise of  an ordinary cheat of the pickpocket calibre into  a national-level scamster.Telgi’s selfconfidence ,often misplaced, is confidently brought  out by Gagan Dev Riar. He  is  the man in the torn chappals in a  tearing hurry.There is  also a violent side to the man, which no one   can understand. No amount of wealth can  compensate  for the loss of the innocence  when  you set  off to be rich overnight. Telgi is  no Macbeth.  But the blood on the hands is  interchangeable.

Season 2(or  Season 1+1) begins  with the kidnapping of  a Kannada superstar. Remember when Kannada  actor Dr Rajkumar was abducted by Veerappan  in  2000, during the course of an armed attack on a farmhouse ?  The series recreates that crime with a cheek  selfassurance. That this incident is  shown to Telgi’s Waterloo is a connectivity that the series establishes  with some confident writing and  a nose for  the stench of corruption in places where the olfactory nerves  don’t usually work.

The  second -half  of the Telgi story is  even  more engaging than the  first, and that’s saying a lot. More Applause  for Applause entertainment.