In theory, nothing about Made In India: A Titan Story is supposed to work. Starting with that corporate-core title. It’s hard not to be wary of well-mounted business success stories about brands and institutions that still exist. There’s the thinnest line between promotional productions and historical dramas. This six-episode series is adapted from Vinay Kamath’s book about the rise of Titan, the world-class watchmaking company founded by Xerxes Desai in pre-liberalisation India. It’s not exactly a rags-to-riches tale; it opens with Desai well into his career, and already an integral part of The Tata Group. It’s not your typical underdog tale either; Desai’s mentor is grand old J.R.D Tata himself, so even when Titan runs into its many bureaucratic and funding roadblocks, it’s not like the team has the odds entirely stacked against them. There’s also the ready-made patriotism angle; Titan unfolds to put the country on a map dominated by shiny Swiss companies. On paper, the series has all the ingredients of a persuasive marketing campaign. For a viewer, it’s the equivalent of trying to root for a nepo-baby in a landscape full of outsiders.
But there’s something about A Titan Story. It may be privileged and blessed with plenty, but it’s also undeniably talented and entertaining: a Sourav Ganguly in a generation of Tendulkars and Dravids. Most of us are wired to be skeptical about such shows, and rightly so. We prefer higher stakes, all-or-nothing destinies, and the tangibility of the struggle. But willing a future into existence is just as compelling as making history. The series punctures our cynicism, and positions itself as a primal celebration of entrepreneurial spirit rather than a retro-fitted ode to cultural superiority. It sticks to the fundamental beats of building, believing, creating and hoping — a vintage portrait of national pride back when patriotism was more of a personal feeling than an ideological choice. The cast is solid, the narrative is busy and neatly researched, the characters are more than just feel-good surrogates of real-world icons, and there’s a sense of conviction in the mainstream tropes. In other words, there’s a humanity about the way ideas and minds collide. There is no ulterior motive as such, a bit like a viral Gen Z movement that’s more concerned with grassroots passions than political dissent. As if to say: these are the blocks that helped build the identity often reduced to modern election slogans.
Some of the strokes are too broad, like the arrogance of the Swiss CEO that talks of Indians as labourers and scoffs at J.R.D Tata. But they’re almost necessary, because this is very much a workplace story that plays out in the language of a family drama. Just like the product and protagonist at its center, A Titan Story defies conventional wisdom to find a balance between nostalgia and curiosity. It’s as simple as seeing engineers, managers and designers get excited about their craft, or a storyteller get excited about words. Otherwise what else can explain the non-failure of a scene where a Titan executive rescues a deal from falling through by wowing his foreign counterpart with homemade laddoos? What can explain the lack of cringe in the dozen-odd lines that use “waqt” (time) as corny analogies? What else can explain the deployment of archival footage and classic Bollywood music as a marker of a post-independence India still in its adolescence? What can explain a subordinate equating his boss with a hard-working “mother” to a newcomer who questions his skill-set? None of this should have worked. But sometimes it’s simplicity that does the job: like a technically polished wristwatch that conceals the promise of emotional significance in its parts.
I like how it gets the little things right. There’s the motif of time itself. Besides the tagline-coded nature of dialogue (“it’s not a watch for those whose time is good, but for those who want to change their time”), the rhythm of the story almost works as an advert for the watch. There’s no real sense of years passing or eras shifting. A balding Desai and his team don’t look physically older over the decade and more because they are busy altering the expression of time; their age is tethered to the longevity of the mission. Their homes and financial status don’t seem to change either; their middle-class-ness is stuck in time. They work round the clock, not against it, and thrive on the ebbs and flow of a country waking up to the power of consumerism.
The motif extends to personal dimensions, too. For instance, co-founder Akash’s old father has Alzheimer’s (an infection of time), so Akash is naturally more risk-averse and conservative with his dreams. The marketing head and core team member, Megha, is running out of time as a career-oriented woman; her mother keeps flooding her with potential matches. Xerxes himself barely registers the passage of time and tide at home: a wife who reads his mood from the taste of the Parsi dish he cooks, a son who’s used to him being away and married to his job, a space that’s more of a reckoning than an escape for a workaholic.
With legacy journeys like these, it’s easy to succumb to exposition dumps and show-and-tell storytelling. Titan faces hurdles that range from government rules and rejected bank loans to smuggling networks and poor sales. But the series is thoughtful, if not creative, with its staging of information. For instance, Akash takes over a crucial presentation with a monologue about the Tata Group to its own board of directors. The reason this scene doesn’t become a company dossier is because Xerxes closes it with a “sometimes it takes a new face to remind us of our history”. Similarly, several breakthroughs for the company that might have looked like Wikipedia entries — the way the name is conceived, the Mozart track they stumble on for the iconic Titan theme, the poaching of employees from rival firms, the approval of that first loan — are constructed with buildups and payoffs. The uplifting portions are earned, as are the disappointments. It’s like watching a swing bowler set up a batsman across multiple deliveries, instead of directly going for a no-context yorker.
More importantly, it’s the people that humanise the brand and make the show. Jim Sarbh channels his Rocket Boys mix of charisma and eccentricity as Xerxes Desai, a maverick who is happy to be defined by his accomplishments. He has grey shades and a huge ego, but they’re never overt. At least twice, Desai seems to send teammates on holiday as a goodwill gesture, only to make ‘uncontested’ changes when they’re gone. He doesn’t look manipulative or ruthless, but Sarbh gives Desai an edginess — a playful sense of ambiguity — that seldom hijacks the character. It’s a remarkable performance, and Desai’s mad ambition stands out even more when contrasted with his friend and co-founder’s sobriety. The personalities of Xerxes and Akash (a sincere Vaibhav Tatwawadi) draw on the Titan design metaphor of how Pyaasa’s darkness is amplified by an upbeat song in between; they become the slick dial and the unglamorous strap of the watch respectively, both complementing and challenging each other at once. I like that there’s tension between the practical thinkers and romantics in the team, most of which stays unresolved in pursuit of a mythical future.
Naseeruddin Shah is wonderfully wise as J.R.D Tata, who is both father figure and veteran boss. There’s nothing Shah can’t do, and the aura he possesses makes the average viewer crave for words of validation from the man. You can see why Xerxes and the others work obsessively and overshoot schedules and budgets the way they do when you see what it means to the old man; all anyone wants to do is impress him and win his smile. When he wryly references new-age slogans with statements like “acche din hote nahi hai, laane padte hai,” it further erases the line between character and actor. Some of the nicer scenes feature an ageing Tata advising Desai while maintaining a tender paternal authority over him. Of the rest, both Lakshvir Saran (who’s having quite a year) and Kaveri Seth are exceptionally grounded as the slow-burning couple in the team. They could have been lightweight additions to a serious genre, but they bring plenty of heart to their roles as chief engineer and marketing head.
This chemistry between the cast is why Made In India: A Titan Story is able to explore a big sociocultural moment as a culmination of smaller, personal moments. As satisfying as it is to see them aim for the stars, it’s the softer exchanges, reaction shots, the fleeting nods and the unexpected cracks in the voice that stay suspended in time. Like the time Tata’s wrinkled face lights up when Desai surprises him with his labour of love. Or a perfectly-acted proposal between two employees who finally grant themselves the freedom to touch each other. Or one of the few times Akash and Xerxes bury the hatchet and put their friendship above professional conflicts. Or even the time a French technical trainer is presented with a poignant gift from his female workers. These are the minute hands on a commercial clock that revels in — and reveals — what makes its creators tick. At the risk of sounding like a former employee, that’s what the series morphs into: a warm love story between man and machine.