It is no coincidence that The Pyramid Scheme, about, well, a pyramid scheme, is set in Haridwar, one of the holiest cities. The show doesn’t quite make the provocative claim of faith being a scam, but it comes as close as one can. It frames scenes of adult mostly-men in crowded halls, enamoured by the possibility of making more money, with that same wide-eyed, ecstatic fervour of a religious gathering, chanting mantras of successes as though hymns.
The thing about pyramid schemes is that they make money not through selling products — though that might be the front — but by recruitment and charging recruitment fees. They need to keep the facade of being a respectable company, in order to bring newer recruits, for the day the recruitment dries up, the pyramid collapses like a house of cards. To keep it propped up requires the charisma of a leader who recruits those with the least hope, for they are the easiest to convince. Besides, in a nation with troubling unemployment rates, the promise of a better future is like touching god’s feet.
Goldy Chauhan (Paramvir Cheema) is caught in the cross-hairs of debt and an extended family — two “kaleshi buas” and their respective families —who have always taken his family for granted. To make this point more salient, Goldie’s father is shorter than his mother. The emasculation is not subtle.
Suddenly, he is told about Jumbolife. All he has to do is get four people to sign up, and those four will get four others, and so the pyramid scheme sprouts shoots. At some point he will become a crorepati. The show frames his desperation so obviously, it takes very little for him to slip into the scam.
Goldy crosses paths with Manoj Srivastava (Ranvir Shorey), who carries the energy of that inspiring teacher, in the body and hairline of your neighbourhood uncle. He accidentally spills wisdom every time he opens his mouth — exactly the kind of hackneyed wisdom that runs religion to the ground. (Again, the parallel with faith, which Manoj somewhat sees through, given what happens to him eventually.)
Manoj can make selling soap sound like an act of self-love, of returning the gaze on yourself, as a gift. Together, Goldy and Manoj ply their trade, and thicken the pyramid, without really recognising that what they are selling is essentially a scam. What is interesting here is that Goldy and Manoj are as much perpetrators as victims. This duality could have produced a morally crushing drama that pushes and pulls in all directions. Instead, like a balanced sheet, the show draws an emotional blank after slotting their respective virtues and vices. For all its bluster, Shreyansh Pandey’s Pyramid Scheme flatlines quickly.
Now, neither the show, nor Goldy, nor Manoj demand clarity about this pyramid scheme — what exactly are they signing up for? What is the timeline? What is the commission? The show really squeezes them into the corner such that they accept wholesale that small ray of light being flung their way. Understandable. But at some point, their naïveté comes off as rank stupidity, a stupidity that is not a character flaw but the writer’s flaw—you can feel the story being unable to push forward conveniently unless it insists on their dumbness. “Daulat ka nasha” is the blanket response.
Soon, they start selling products. They also sell tickets to concerts, where stars, influencers, and inspiring coaches take the stage. The show thickens with subplots — Goldy’s cousins, each given a strange, unfinished track, and one even given a smudge of romance, with neither committing to its blossoming, nor its fading. None of the warmth and detailing of Gullak, also created by Shreyansh Pandey, resides here.
The scheme’s unraveling, too, happens just as quickly and abruptly as its forming. Its aftermath, too, quickly dusted off. Have we forgotten how to tell stories? To build story through character, as opposed to story alongside character? To stick the landing? To let ideas breathe?
This is the deep frustration of the show. It moves quickly between characters, without really giving them a reason to exist in this world. Everyone in this show has a thin film of frustration, which suddenly, randomly erupts, only to be solved. Some characters lose interest, and just as quickly regain their faith. Other characters are stretched into situations and force-fitted into reactions, which Goldy thinks he can make more convincing by moving his hands too much to say too little. After a point, you are watching a slideshow of pathetic men, who are using ambition as a gateway drug to greed. During the Jumbolife concerts, they make the letter J with their index finger and thumb, holding their hand up like groupies. But poor Manoj-ji. He cannot bend his thumb enough, so his J looks like an L. Losers, all of them, all the way through.