What went down on a day-long shoot of 'Sacred Games' in Mumbai

Playing cop: Saif Ali Khan on the sets of Sacred Games

On one sweltering afternoon, the rusty beams and columns of Richardson and Cruddas’ defunct mills offer no respite, but inside the shoot for Sacred Games – India’s first original Netflix series – is on. A camera pans from puddles in the ground that reflect the corroded surroundings, moving to the anxious faces of Saif Ali Khan and Radhika Apte. The two turn expectantly towards cars that come to a screeching halt near them before the take is cut, and showrunner and co-director, Vikramaditya Motwane, intently studies the many replays.

The multilingual show is an adaptation of Vikram Chandra’s 2007 novel of the same name and the thriller follows police officer Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan) and his investigation into the life and suicide of notorious gangster Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui). Much like the novel, the show pieces together the two narratives of its main characters, each developed independently. So the ongoing shoot — helmed by Motwane, explores Singh’s perspective — is for a scene from one half of the series. But the dilapidated walls on the estate also serve as a backdrop for shots of Gaitonde’s tale which is being moulded by Anurag Kashyap. “There’s an implicit trust in each other’s work – we’ve known each other for 20 years,” says Motwane when we sit down to talk. “Part of that is the challenge – ‘you shoot yours and I’ll shoot mine’ – and the surprise is going to be the most exciting part,” he says. Also tying together the large narrative of the eight-episode series by writers Smita Singh, Vasant Nath and Varun Grover, is Chandra who is a consultant on the show. “It can be hard for a writer to let go of something you’ve worked on for so many years,” says Motwane, “[but] it has been lovely [working] with him.”

Revisioning an epic

Chandra’s magnum opus is a complex tale, spilling over into nearly a thousand pages and laden with Bambaiya slang. But its origins lie in the 1997 collection of stories, Love and Longing in Bombay that first introduced Sartaj Singh. Khan relied on the short story, ‘Kama’ to delve into his character’s angst at being caught between his gruelling profession and an impending divorce. The burden, Khan explains, causes Singh to obsessively chew on Xanax-like pills.

The actor admits that Singh has been tweaked to be visually engaging and is a slightly more charged-up version of the passive officer in the books. “[He] is described as being very thin and very tall. So there’s [already] a departure there,” laughs Khan, seeming at home in his dusty visage — his deep purple shirt, grey turban and bloodied lip coated in grime. “He has got anger issues, personal and professional issues,” shares the actor. “He hasn’t been very successful, and then one day [Gaitonde’s case] drops into his lap. He has a chance to define himself,” says Khan, “I think there’s a relatability [in] a vulnerable guy who is just trying to survive.”

Siddiqui’s take on Gaitonde is just as sympathetic: “

Main isko gangster play nahin kar raha hoon. Uske dreams hain bade hone ke (I am not portraying him as a gangster. He dreams of becoming powerful).”

The actor admits the character has a god complex. Dressed in Gaitonde’s jazzy shirt and maroon pants – Siddiqui is an endearing contrast as he plays with his son before settling into a chair alone to revise his notes.

Apte plays Research and Analysis Wing agent Anjali Mathur – a character fleshed out in the script. “She is quite obnoxious – which I loved actually – and completely no-nonsense,” she shares adding the character’s curtness comes from wanting to be taken seriously in a male-dominated environment.

The melting pot

Thanks to Netflix, the actors enjoyed being uncensored. Explaining how she had to keep herself in check to not swear while shooting the frightener Phobia (2016), Apte says, “It genuinely feels free. I don’t feel restricted in any way.” Khan seems to agree, but says that the freedom is handled responsibly. “I don’t think we are being gratuitous in any way.” He pauses to add, “Except, [Constable] Katekar did grab a guy’s crotch when he was being tortured in his underwear.”

For the creators, the freedom also translates to authenticity, despite it being an international show. The honesty lies not just in the visuals, but in the range of languages used – Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi and traces of Gujarati. “You’ll get a real sense of what India is. You’ll see that diversity,” promises Kashyap.

With a gritty narrative wrought into a tight series, a character assuming he is infallible, and the riveting pace of a pursuit, Sacred Games is being touted as India’s Narcos . Just as the complicated and bloody history of Medellín seeps into drug kingpin Pablo Escobar’s tale, the city of Mumbai weaves together the lives in Sacred Games .

For Motwane, who painted the suffocating isolation of this crowded city in Trapped (2017), the exercise was still a demanding process. “Finding a balance between making this for a worldwide audience [and not alienating] everybody over here has been a massive challenge,” he says. There’s a method, but there’s also chaos which, according to Khan, is very cinematic, “from the slums of Dharavi to the incredible mess you find in a records office.” He continues, “The novel has a love for Mumbai, [which] has got its own character.” And the series promises to be an ode to that.