Sana Thombre
17th October 2020
One can attach a succession of controversial news about people who have committed India’s largest monetary scams and make a series from it. Now available on the online streaming platform called Netflix, it goes by the name ‘Bad Boy Billionaires: India’. ‘The king of good times’, Vijay Mallya, celebrity diamantaire Nirav Modi, and the long-gone chairperson of the Sahara Family Subrata Roy were the prime stories discussed.
Having them on board with the idea of a Netflix series talking about how they managed to fool renowned banks to below poverty line people is not a child’s play. After weeks of legal squabbling, the streaming company had argued that halting the release ‘freezes free speech’ and hurts the company financially, Reuters has reported. Netflix managed three out of four episodes to be on air. Ramalingam Raju, well known for the INR 7000Cr Satyam scam, refused to participate.
Bad Boy Billionaires: The series (Source: Indian Express)
Bad Boy billionaires: India showed the flamboyant celebrations, luxurious lifestyle, and god-like aura these big boys carried but failed to acknowledge the deeper roots of how their scams affected the nation and its people. The show gave a general idea and surface news about the scams, information on which is readily available on the internet.
Each episode dedicates the first half to build a positive and grand personality image. The latter half discusses the downfall of these tycoons, which is an absolute wriggle in the narrative. The majority of this documentary includes clips from old interviews, various news channel features that discussed the scams, and some individual testimonies by family, friends, and former employees.This Netflix production lacks authoritative narration and has no opinion to stand on. They are nothing but a show of lucid news pieces put together frame after frame.
Nevertheless, it talks about an initiative taken, how these three Indian business tycoons changed the middle-class outlook towards a product or a lifestyle. From Kingfisher giving us the idea of living life king-size, Nirav Modi wanted the Indian version of Tiffany’s and the Diamond artisans to be recognized worldwide to Sahara indigent to save as little as INR10 a day did start a new age thinking, but at the cost of the biggest money frauds India has witnessed to date.
(Sources: The Hindu, Reuters)
Edited by: Keyuri