Sacred Games is an Indian Hindi-language neo-noir crime thriller television series based on Vikram Chandra's 2006 novel of the same name. Produced and directed by Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap under the banner of Phantom Films, it is India's first Netflix original series. The novel was adapted by Varun Grover, Smita Singh, and Vasant Nath. Kelly Luegenbiehl, Erik Barmack and Motwane were the series' executive producers.
The series follows Sartaj Singh (Saif Ali Khan), a troubled police officer in Mumbai who receives a phone call from gangster Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), warning him to save the city within 25 days. As the series unfolds, it chronicles the intense events that follow this ominous call. Other cast members include Radhika Apte, Girish Kulkarni, Neeraj Kabi, Jeetendra Joshi, Rajshri Deshpande, Karan Wahi, Sukhmani Sadana, Aamir Bashir, Jatin Sarna, Elnaaz Norouzi, Pankaj Tripathi, Amey Wagh, Kubbra Sait, Surveen Chawla, Kalki Koechlin, Ranvir Shorey, Vikram Kochar and Amruta Subhash.
Sacred Games began development after Netflix vice-president Erik Barmack asked Motwane in 2014 to create Indian content for the platform. They decided to adapt Chandra's novel in Hindi. After a script was completed, Motwane asked Kashyap to co-direct; Motwane directed the scenes with Singh, and Kashyap directed Gaitonde's scenes. Swapnil Sonawane was director of photography for Motwane; Sylvester Fonseca and Aseem Bajaj filmed the scenes directed by Kashyap. In the second season, Motwane reduced his involvement to showrunner and was replaced as director by Neeraj Ghaywan. Aarti Bajaj was the editor, and Alokananda Dasgupta composed the background score.
The first season of Sacred Games consisting of eight episodes was released on Netflix on 6 July 2018 in 191 countries. The series is subtitled in over 20 languages. It received mostly critical acclaim from critics, with particular praise for its performances and writing. The first season is the only Indian series to appear on The New York Times "The 30 Best International TV Shows of the Decade" list. The second season premiered on 15 August 2019, met with a mixed response.
Overview Sartaj Singh is a troubled Mumbai Police inspector who seeks validation from a police force he hates for its corruption. He receives a phone call from Ganesh Gaitonde, a notorious crime lord who has been missing for 16 years. He tells Sartaj to save the city in 25 days, beginning a chain of events that burrows deep into India's underworld. On his journey, Sartaj is helped by Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer Anjali Mathur; flashbacks detail Gaitonde's origins, and how he became Mumbai's crime lord. The first season follows Sartaj as he tries to uncover clues about Gaitonde's past and learns about a connection between Gaitonde and his father.
In season two, Gaitonde's story continues in flashbacks while Sartaj tries to find answers. Sartaj discovers an ashram to which his father once belonged, and learns about their apocalyptic plans to create a new, conflict-free world. Gaitonde's meeting with Khanna Guruji, how he became part of the ashram, and his activities with them are depicted in flashbacks. Also explored is how Gaitonde was deployed in Kenya by Kusum Devi Yadava RAW officer who tries to keep Gaitonde's archenemy Suleiman Isa alive so she can capture and kill Shahid Khan, a dangerous extremist who turns out to be Sartaj's cousin and harbors a plan (with the ashram) to wipe out India.
Cast +ActorCharacterSeasons12Saif Ali Khan Inspector Sartaj Singh colspan="2" Nawazuddin SiddiquiGanesh Gaitonde colspan="2" Radhika ApteAnjali Mathur Pankaj Tripathi Khanna Guruji Kalki Koechlin Batya Abelman Ranvir ShoreyShahid Khan Neeraj KabiDCP Dilip Parulkar colspan="2" Jatin SarnaDeepak "Bunty" Shinde colspan="2" Kubra SaitKukoo Jitendra JoshiConstable Ashok Katekar Rajshri DeshpandeSubhadra Elnaaz NorouziZoya Mirza/Jamila colspan="2" Luke KennyMalcolm Mourad colspan="2" Aamir BashirInspector Majid Ali Khan colspan="2" Geetanjali ThapaNayanika Sehgal Surveen ChawlaJojo Mascarenas colspan="2" Shalini VatsaKanta Bai colspan="2" Amruta SubhashKusum Devi Yadav Girish KulkarniBipin Bhosale colspan="2" Anupriya GoenkaMegha Singh colspan="2" Affan KhanYoung Sartaj Singh colspan="2" Sunny Pawar Young Ganesh Gaitonde colspan="2" Danish PandorBada Badariya colspan="2" Anil MangeChota Badariya colspan="2" Vikram KocharMathu colspan="2" Samir Kochhar ACIO Markand colspan="2" Chittaranjan TripathyTrivedi colspan="2" Rajendra ShisatkaASI Dhobale colspan="2" Sukhmani Sadana Mikki colspan="2" Muni JhaParitosh Shah Karan WahiKaran Malhotra Karan Veer MehraRajeev Chawla Rajveer Singh RajputRaw Agent Nawab Shah Salim Kaka Saanand VermaPurushottam Baria Jaipreet Singh Constable Dilbagh Singh colspan="2" Saurabh SachdevaSuleiman Isa colspan="2" Neha ShitoleShalini Katekar colspan="2" Smita TambeATS Analyst Rama Harshita GaurMary Mascarenas Priyanka SetiaHarsha Baria Sandesh KulkarniGaitonde's Father colspan="2" Vibhavari DeshpandeGaitonde's Mother Joy SenguptaMathur Amey WaghKushal Jaimin PanchalGaitonde's Brother Sharik KhanVikash
Episodes
Production Development Netflix vice-president Erik Barmack came across Sacred Games, Vikram Chandra's 2006 crime novel, while the service was searching for Indian content for a global audience. Barmack called it "an interesting property", and decided to adapt it in Hindi. In 2014, Netflix approached Phantom Films to produce a series; writer-director Vikramaditya Motwane met their team during a visit to Los Angeles. Motwane had read Chandra's earlier novel, Love and Longing in Bombay, which introduces the character of Sartaj Singh. After the meeting, he read Sacred Games and thought it was "great". Motwane said that the best thing for him was that Netflix wanted to produce the series in Hindi, rather than English: "Speaking in English can seem so fake at times." He started working on the adaptation with writer Varun Grover, calling the writing process the "biggest challenge".
Motwane found the web-series medium "liberating", since he could tell stories which "don't have to be told in two-and-a-half hours with an interval and three songs inserted into it." Although he initially considered using different directors for each episode, "As we got closer to production, we realised that dates were clashing and that it was an overall nightmare [...]" Motwane suggested that he and Anurag Kashyap co-direct the series, since he felt that the two "distinct voices" were essential for the two parallel tracks of the plot. Kashyap said that he "gobbled" up the opportunity as the novel had fascinated him. In 2014, he was approached by AMC and Scott Free Productions to direct an English-language adaptation of the novel. Kashyap declined, since he did not want to do "anything based in India in English". Motwane and his writers gave the scripts to Chandra for feedback: "Chandra is so research-intensive that we didn't have to approach another researcher, we just had to ask him questions." The series was written by Grover, Smita Singh, and Vasant Nath. Singh said that in 2016, they were told by Phantom Films that "it had to be a gripping slow-burner". Research was directed by Smita Nair and Mantra Watsa, who summarised every chapter and made the "complex plot easily accessible" to the writers. The series' script was completed in a year. Nath said that in the beginning of the writing process, they were "chucking away some important characters from the original, and bringing in new ones". Sacred Games is Netflix' first Indian original series.
Its episode titles were inspired by Hindu mythology. The first episode, "Aswatthama", was based on the namesake character from the Mahabharata who was cursed with immortality by Krishna after the Kurukshetra War. In the series, Gaitonde calls himself immortal (like Ashwatthama) before he commits suicide. "Halahala", the second episode, was named after a poison created from the churning of the sea. Aatapi and Vatapi were two demons who tricked people with their nice behavior and killed them. Brahmahatya (the killing of a brahmin) is a crime in Hinduism. In that episode, the Hindu Gaitonde agrees to attract Muslim votes for the Hindu politician Bhosale. "Sarama" refers to as a dog. "Pretakalpa" refers to a Hindu text read at a funeral. In this episode, Katekar is killed and Sartaj cremates him. Rudra is the angry version of Shiva. Gaitonde's wife Subhadra is killed in this episode, and he takes revenge by murdering her killers. Yayati was a king who was cursed with premature old age. The series' title sequence, logo, and title designs were designed by graphic designer Aniruddh Mehta and the Mumbai-based motion lab Plexus, who were inspired by Hindu mythology. Mehta said that each emblem was a contemporary take on "stories from ancient Hindu scriptures, mandalas, mixing modern design elements with characters from the Indus Valley Civilization". The sequence also featured real footages of several events such as the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
Several changes were made in adapting the novel as a series. Kukoo, a transgender woman, is mentioned in passing in the novel as a dancer with whom a police officer fell in love; a constable describes Kukoo to Sartaj as "beautiful as a Kashmiri apple". In the series, Kukoo is a prominent character as Gaitonde's love interest; Malcolm Murad, mentioned once in the novel, has a prominent role in the series as an assassin. A few other changes were made in the adaptation. The Bombay riots are prominent in the novel; in the series, they are briefly described by Gaitonde.
Casting and characters
Several characters in the series speak different Indian languages (Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi and Gujarati), and Kashyap cited that as giving a "real sense of what India is". Saif Ali Khan, who plays the cop Sartaj Singh, called the series an experiment, and said he agreed to do it because "people are willing to watch programmes from other countries with sub-titles because good stories transcend boundaries." Khan found an "interesting arc" in Singh, calling the character "troubled and honest". He said that he read portions of the novel, but stopped when he found that it was not helping him find what he needed as an actor. Radhika Apte played Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer Anjali Mathur. Apte called her character a "completely no-nonsense, focused woman who's highly respected in her field and by her peers." She said that her character was not glamourised (unlike Hindi film depictions of a RAW agent). Kashyap said that the novel is about "how Bombay became Mumbai", and the series gives "a sense of the city, where it came from and where it is today."