Sunday 7 February 2021

The Harshad Mehta story; the series worth watching

 


The Harshad Mehta story; the series worth watching

Introduction:- 

Of late web series are slowly engrossing online entertainment segment. It has  its own set of viewership (Maybe because of its spicy content having foul and abusive language, swearings, bold and sexual scenes in ample amount). 

The Sacred Game, Mirzapur, The Family Man, Four more shots, please to name a few. In these super spicy and bold streamings one sober but equally powerful web series stands apart 'Scam 1992, The Harshad Mehta Story.

The cast, the characters, the gripping and fluent storyline, high class acting standard, all these factors have contributed strongly in making it a blockbuster success. 

 

The Storyline:- 


Money, everybody long for. The more we earn the more we desire for accruing and accumulating it. The time factor is of prime importance here. The 80's era; slow-paced life and very limited means of earnings. 

Working professional had its own pace, (Poor) salary earners growing at snail's pace, small businesses, in those days, with limited market. 

The word Growth was very expensive those days as people could barely manage 'do waqt ki roti'. 

In this painstaking and listless life period somewhere in Mumbai there was a Gujarati aspirant from a humble background with an intense desire to earn money at a quick rate, Harshad Mehta.


'Ye share market itna gahra  kuwa hai jo pure desh ki paise ki pyas bhuja sakta hai.' He reckons. 

From a small jobber this ordinary man becomes the big bull of the Share market in very short time. Share market Sensex keeps on soaring so does the share values of Harshad Mehta's clients' investments. 

 But how? Was share market so easy to ride on that it paid back such high returns on the investment in such a short duration of time? The Ĺ„aive investors are least curious or keen to analyze this. The handsome returns they are interested in with the blind faith and belief that 'Harshad Mehta sab janata hai'. He will take care of it. 


# Illusion and Fall:- 


Without the concrete source of  actual earning Harshad Mehta creates an illusive image of the market by manipulating the flawed banking systems along with the false and hyped rating of the invested companies. It is shown how he adopts illegitimate ways to manage and earn huge profits disproportionately. 

The raging bull of the ever surging sensex market he looks for, always. But this very craving nature of his ultimately traps him, and he tumbles, collapses so does the market. 

His irregularities in transactions, system tweaks with the help of bank cronies, illegitimate inflation of the share prices all come under scrutiny. 


# Climax and the lesson- 

Each episode and the chain of events intrigue us and shows how complex, deep, uncertain, risky, interconnected, sensitive, unfathomable and at times manipulative the share market is. Numerous micro and macro factors control this field. 

It is such a field on a bright sunny day with no expectation of rain cyclone can strike in. A thing of national pride too, like Pokharan nuclear test, can destroy the investors. 

 Even the champions get dusted in no time. 

The climax of the series also  emphasizes the market and money swings would go high but after a certain peak it would return down too. So the discretion every investor should use where to put a stop.  

In fact, this unreliability, uncertainty, manipulation by some greedy parasites and the apprehension of losing the hard earned money deters larger portion of the population from investing in the share market. 

The lesson this series teaches us- Pros and cons of Share Market will always be there. 

For the super riches, affluent classes it might be the major source of 'EARNINGS', in fact a profession, but for the common classes it shall only be one of the sources for RETURNS. 

Some portion of the earnings out of the profession or work can be reserved for this risky investment than investing greedily for easy and quick bucks. 

Yes, 'risk hai to isk hai', but that risk should not be blind one. 

That is the morale of the Harshad Mehta story, The Scam 1992.