22 November,2016 09:43 AM IST | | Dipanjan Sinha
A common man grapples with the experience of becoming a CM in this hilarious new web series
A frame from the series
An endearing feature of politicians in India is that they allow others to feel good about themselves. Heated discussions on issues can have an amicable end by invoking politicians and agreeing that they are corrupt and responsible for most tragedies of the country.
What if one such man, who has been going about his tranquil blame-the-leader life is thrown into the cauldron of politics and made the chief minister of a state? We have seen such an instance in the film, Nayak, where the hero does Bollywood-type unreal stunts to save the day. But what if that story is placed in a realistic context?
These are questions that CM CM Hota Hai, a new web series by Web Talkies, will explore through its protagonist, Murlidhar, who has become the chief minister of a state, and is grappling with Kafkaesque bureaucratic hurdles.
The freshness of this idea worked for senior actor Atul Srivastav, who had been turning down offers to work in a web series till now. "I have worked in a small piece on Game Of Thrones by TVF but no web series yet. It is not that I had any apprehension but was waiting for an idea that I found interesting," he says. The actor who has worked in several movies and television shows says that he sees great potential in web entertainment. "With computers around, things were still not so different. But with phones, it is all changing so fast. Everyone is glued to their phones, and this is where they will get their entertainment from," he says.
As an actor, the only difference he sees is that the performance needs to be toned down a bit from television. "Television needs loud acting but for this format, we tone it down. We also have to keep in mind that these episodes cater to an audience with a low attention span," he says.
Umesh Ghatge, creative director of Web Talkies says that though the web is a very wide arena, the space for a political satire has not been explored much. "This story is fresh in this format. A common man becomes a chief minister and comes with his to-do list. Then he realises that to do anything at all he has to go through a maze of bureaucratic hurdles," he says. The first episode is out and the response has been impressive. Ghatge is happy with the response too. Let's see what the common man CM does next..
Log on to: www.webtalkies.in
