Modi – Journey of a Common Man first impression: Hybrid of fact and fiction leads to hero worship

From what I have seen in the first two episodes, this series focuses on different chapters of PM Modi’s life and how he was eager to serve the country from an early age. Basically, the hero worship starts from the word go and it would have been shocking had it been otherwise. The show opens with two timelines, one from the early 1960s and the other from the mid-1970s, the Emergency era, and in both timelines, Modi is the one with strong leadership skills who aims to change the world through his actions.

The 12-year-old Narendra Modi, played by Faizal Khan, comes across as an annoying smartmouth and it’s mainly because he talks excessively. The scenes featuring him never seem to end. One track with the Republic Day march in his school goes on forever and eventually, it appears as if it was an extended chapter used for character building. This holds true for most scenes in the first two episodes. Every scene is a tool to highlight one particular quality of PM Modi. We understand they are trying to build the man who will eventually become Prime Minister but it’s more like ticking a checklist of qualities required to make the man who is known by the masses today.

The 20-something-old version of Modi, played by Ashish Sharma, comes across as a confident and reliable leader. He has the fire to change the world but his ill-timed sense of humour, which probably exists to soften the character, makes you exasperate just a little.

Making a biopic on someone does not mean that they should be omnipresent to the extent of being exhausting. The supporting characters exist, but only to amp up the lead character.

Writers Mihir Bhuta and Radhika Anand have based this series on the book by Kishor Makwana titled Common Man’s PM – Narendra Modi and while the argument of fact v/s fiction cannot apply to fictionalised biographies (disclaimer calls this a ‘hybrid of fact and fiction’), this web series tends to become boring at times.

Since the series is being released just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, it goes without saying that this is a piece of propaganda and anyone who chooses to believe otherwise is probably living under a rock. But even if someone were to view this series as just a web show, it does not qualify as entertaining.

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