The Godfather of Bombay (TV series)

Television series
German title	The godfather of Bombay
Original title	Sacred Games
Country of production	India
original language	Hindi
Year (s)	since 2018
Production company	Phantom Films
length	43-58 minutes
Episodes	16 in 2 seasons
genre	Thriller crime mystery
idea	Vikramaditya Motwane
production	Kelly Luegenbiehl Erik Barmack Vikramaditya Motwane
music	Alokananda Dasgupta
First broadcast	July 6, 2018 on Netflix
German-language first broadcast	July 6, 2018 on Netflix
occupation

The Godfather of Bombay (original title Sacred Games, English for holy games) is an Indian television series of the video-on-demand provider Netflix . It is also the first Netflix in-house production from India. The idea for the series comes from the Indian director and screenwriter Vikramaditya Motwde . He was asked by Netflix Vice President Erik Barmack to create Indian programs for the platform. Motwane decided to adapt the 2006 novel The Godfather of Bombay by writer Vikram Chandra . After the scripts were written, Motwane asked his colleague Anurag Kashyap to direct with him, who accepted the offer. Motwane directed the protagonist's scenes , while Kashyap directed the antagonist's sequences .

The series premiered on July 6, 2018. It is broadcast in 191 countries, but in countries such as Germany , France or Italy , where foreign productions are usually dubbed , the dialogues are translated with subtitles . In September 2018, Netflix announced that it had ordered a second season, which first aired on August 15, 2019.

action

Sartaj Singh, a frustrated, pill-addicted police investigator in Mumbai is always looking for recognition, even though he detests his employer. One day he receives a call from gangster boss Ganesh Gaitonde, who has been missing for 16 years. He tells him that the city will be destroyed in 25 days. During his dangerous investigation into the underworld of Mumbai, Sartaj relies on the help of Anjali Mathur, who works as an agent for the Indian secret service RAW.

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Leading roles

role	actor
Inspector Sartaj Singh	Saif Ali Khan Affan Khan (young)
Ganesh Gaitonde	Nawazuddin Siddiqui Sunny Pawar (young)
Khanna Guruji	Pankaj Tripathi
Agent Anjali Mathur	Radhika Apte
Agent Kusum Devi Yadav	Amruta Subhash
Batya Abelman	Kalki Koechlin
Shahid Khan	Ranvir Shorey

Supporting roles

role	actor
DCP Parulkar	Neeraj Kabi
Deepak "Bunty" Shinde	Jatin Sarna
Kukoo	Kubra Sait
Constable Katekar	Jitendra Joshi
Subhadra	Rajshri Deshpande
Malcolm Mourad	Luke Kenny
Zoya Mirza / Jamila	Elnaaz Norouzi
Khanna Guru Ji	Pankaj Tripathi
Inspector Majid Ali Khan	Aamir Bashir
Nayanika Sehgal	Geetanjali Thapa
Kanta Bai	Shalini Vatsa
Jojo Mascarenas	Surveen Chawla
Bipin Bhosale	Girish Kulkarni
Megha Singh	Anupriya Goenka
Bada Badariya	Danish Pandor
Chota Badariya	Anil Charanjeet
Mathu	Vikram Kochar
ACIO Markand	Samir Kochhar
Trivedi	Chittaranjan Tripathy
ASI Dhobale	Rajendra Shisatkar
Mikki	Sukhmani Sadana
Paritosh Shah	Muni Jha
Karan Malhotra	Karan Wahi
Bunty's girlfriend	Promita Banik
Salim Kaka	Nawab Shah
Constable Dilbagh Singh	Jaipreet Singh
Junaid Sheikh	Raj Kashyap
Suleiman Isa	Saurabh Sachdeva
Gaitonde's father	Sandesh Kulkarni
Gaitonde's mother	Vibhavari Deshpande
Katekar's wife	Neha Shitole

Episode list

season 1

No. ( total )	No. ( St. )	German title	Original title	Director	script
1	1	Ashwathama	Ashwathama	Vikramaditya Motwane & Anurag Kashyap	Varun Grover
In Mumbai , a woman is murdered after mocking a man. The investigating inspector Sartaj Singh works for the police of the city. He is addicted to sleeping pills and secretly loathes his employer because many of his colleagues are corrupt . He also has problems with his supervisor, Chief Police Officer Parulkar, as an uninvolved youth was shot during an operation. One evening Sartaj receives a call from Ganesh Gaitonde, the woman's murderer. He is a notorious and influential criminal who disappeared without a trace 16 years ago. He tells the story of how he went from being the son of a pious Brahmin to a feared gangster in the 1980s . Sartaj doesn't really listen to him until Ganesh mentions the name Dilbag Singh, Sartaj's father. Anjali Mathur, an agent with the Indian intelligence service Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW for short, can trace the call back to a warehouse in a mall . Sartaj gains entry with a bulldozer and faces Ganesh. He tells Sartaj that Mumbai will be destroyed in 25 days and only one man named Trivedi will be saved. He then shoots himself .
2	2	Halahala	Halahala	Vikramaditya Motwane & Anurag Kashyap	Smita Singh
Sartaj is suspended because, in Parulkar's eyes, he did not cooperate in the case of the young person who was killed. He nevertheless returns to the crime scene, steals the car keys and thus finds the woman's car. Sartaj turns to Anjali and asks her to find out the woman's identity. By checking the label turns out that it is in the deaths by Jojo Mascarenas, a casting -Agentin that also as a pimp destitute actresses Free , has among other Ganesh, mediated. Sartaj finds a large amount of counterfeit money in her house and notifies Anjali. She finds out that this is related to a discontinued case in which she has been investigating the Pakistani secret service ISI . Then Anjali is called into a restaurant where an armed man has killed almost all of the guests. The only seriously injured survivor is taken to hospital by her. It's Mathu, an older man who used to work with Ganesh. He is injected with poison in his hospital bed by an unknown person , from which he dies. Meanwhile, a young Bollywood actress demands from her informant at the police that he should get the files that Jojo has made about her, otherwise something will happen. At the same time, Ganesh's story is told: In the 1980s, he is beaten up by a godfather who rules a slum . He also meets Parulkar, who was a young assistant to the inspector at the time. After this experience, Ganesh decides to put a gang together and looks for members on the street.
3	3	Atapi Vatapi	Atapi Vatapi	Vikramaditya Motwane & Anurag Kashyap	Smita Singh
Sartaj fights with his colleague, Inspector Majid Ali Khan, which is quite a normal occurrence at the police station. He then continues to investigate the murder of the casting agent and thus comes on the trail of Nayanika, an actress in a soap opera who was Jojo's prostitute and who regularly has sex with Bunty. Sartaj and Anjali can persuade her to use their help to set a trap for Bunty. Another flashback explains the role Bunty plays in Ganesh's past: He is the most loyal member of the gang, a petty criminal and Hindu fundamentalist who hates Mumbai. He often argues with Chota Badariya, another member, because he is a Muslim and also starts a relationship with Bunty's sister. Meanwhile, Ganesh falls in love with Kukoo, a trans woman who is the lover of Suleiman Isa, the head of a warring gang. During a shootout, Ganesh manages to kidnap Kukoo and bring her to his home. For her sake, he wants to give up being a criminal and only do legal business in the future.
4th	4th	Brahmahatya	Brahmahatya	Vikramaditya Motwane & Anurag Kashyap	Vasant Nath
Sartaj's plan fails when Bunty finds the hidden camera that was hidden by Nayanika in his house. Sartaj, waiting outside, is seen by Bunty's henchmen and brought in. He's trying to coax Bunty into what will happen in Mumbai in a few days. Bunty doesn't talk, but leaves Sartaj behind and hurries with his henchmen and Nayanika to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts. There he meets a mysterious figure who had appeared several times in previous episodes and whose job it is to make evidence disappear. In another flashback, Ganesh realizes that politics can be an extremely lucrative business. For 50 lakh he influences the election in favor of the young politician Bipin Bhosale, who will be Indian interior minister in the future . At the end of the flashback and thus the episode, Ganesh is threatened with a gun by a burqa- wearing stranger.
5	5	Sarama	Sarama	Vikramaditya Motwane & Anurag Kashyap	Vasant Nath
Anjali has a very negative opinion about Nayanika, which is why she refuses to come to his aid. Sartaj is disappointed and goes to the warehouse alone to save her. There he is surrounded by Bunty and his cronies, but his colleagues from the Mumbai police arrive on time. However, they do not arrest Bunty, but shoot both him and Nayanika on Parulkar's orders. At the end of the episode, the Bollywood actress from the second episode is blackmailed by her colleague and boyfriend . She is supposed to play in his own production, otherwise he will reveal her involvement in the Gaitonde scandal. In the next flashback from 1992 , riots arise in the country, whereupon the enmity between Ganesh and Suleiman intensifies. Ganesh's people kill a large number of enemy members. Shortly afterwards, Ganesh decides to get married in order to settle down. On his wedding day, one of his closest confidants is murdered by Suleiman, which he regards as his "wedding present". The marriage with Ganesh's housekeeper is still carried out.
6th	6th	Pretakalpa	Pretakalpa	Vikramaditya Motwane & Anurag Kashyap	Smita Singh
Sartaj visits his mother to find a connection between Ganesh and his father, but comes back empty-handed. Meanwhile, Sartaj's colleague Kateka is investigating the case of a missing young Muslim who lives in a slum. He finds out that the missing man robbed a nearby shop and is believed to have gone into hiding. When he and Sartaj track down the young man's gang, the situation escalates and all gang members and Sartaj's assistant are killed. Meanwhile, the Bollywood actress harms herself, meets with her police informant, and accuses her boyfriend of harming her. She also says that he killed a dog, which could lead to a prison sentence in India. In another flashback, Ganesh finds out that his gang member Chota is a mole and provides Suleiman with information. Completely angry, Ganesh then kills both Chota and his brother.
7th	7th	Rudra	Rudra	Vikramaditya Motwane & Anurag Kashyap	Vasant Nath
Although the Bollywood actress has connections up to the highest police circles, Sartaj manages to track down and question her because he suspects her and other people to have something to do with the impending attack. When this doesn't really help him, he allies himself again with Anjali. The two decide to track down Trivedi because, according to Ganesh, he will be the only one to survive the attack. They arrive at Trivedi's house, he finally gives them an address. While Sartaj is driving there, the same mysterious figure from previous episodes appears in the house. It is an Indian with Egyptian roots who shoots Anjali. Several rival gang members want to kill Ganesh in the flashback, but it is not him who dies, but his wife Subhadra. That is why he randomly murdered people on the street over the next few days and set fire to entire slums in which Muslim families live. He is arrested shortly afterwards and brutally beaten every day in prison. However, this is not done, as he suspects, out of revenge on the murders, but to break it, since a guru hires the thugs.
8th	8th	Yayati	Yayati	Vikramaditya Motwane & Anurag Kashyap	Varun Grover
Sartaj eventually finds out that his father wasn't corrupt, just an ordinary prison guard. Unlike his colleagues, he treated Ganesh kindly and brought him food and water every day, which is why Ganesh had not forgotten his name after his imprisonment. His research leads him to a room where dozen of highly dangerous weapons are stored in wooden boxes. Shortly afterwards, he is overpowered, tied up and taken to the mysterious man. He tells him that Interior Minister Bipin Bhosale ordered the weapons to be obtained. A little later, Sartaj's colleagues storm the hiding place and confiscate the weapons. Bipin is questioned by the National Security Advisor, but does not speak. He later makes remarks to Parulkar that indicate an impending religious conflict. At the end of the season, Sartaj finally finds, with the help of a televised speech from the guru who tortured Ganesh in prison , a kind of bunker that contains materials that are essential for survival after a nuclear attack.
On July 6, 2018, all episodes of the season were released simultaneously on Netflix.

season 2

No. ( total )	No. ( St. )	German title	Original title	Director	script
9	1	Matsya	Matsya	Neeraj Ghaywan & Anurag Kashyap	Vikram Chandra
10	2	Siduri	Siduri	Neeraj Ghaywan & Anurag Kashyap	Vikram Chandra
11	3	Apasmara	Apasmara	Neeraj Ghaywan & Anurag Kashyap	Vikram Chandra
12	4th	Bardo	Bardo	Neeraj Ghaywan & Anurag Kashyap	Vikram Chandra
13	5	Vicarna	Vicarna	Neeraj Ghaywan & Anurag Kashyap	Vikram Chandra
14th	6th	Azrael	Azrael	Neeraj Ghaywan & Anurag Kashyap	Vikram Chandra
15th	7th	Torino	Torino	Neeraj Ghaywan & Anurag Kashyap	Vikram Chandra
16	8th	Radcliffe	Radcliffe	Neeraj Ghaywan & Anurag Kashyap	Vikram Chandra
On August 15, 2019, all episodes of the season were released simultaneously on Netflix.

Trivia

• The episode titles are allusions to elements of Hindu mythology : Ashwathama is a character from the epic Mahabharata , whom Krishna curses with the curse of immortality as punishment . Halahala describes a poison that is extracted from the milk ocean . Aatapi and Vatapi are two demons who first treat travelers kindly and then kill them. Brahmahatya refers to the murder of a brahmin, which is considered a serious crime in Hinduism. Sarama is a goddess who resembles a dog . Pretakalpa refers to learning the Hindu rites in order to be able to successfully carry out a cremation . Rudra is an evil form of the god Shiva . Yayati is a king who ages greatly from a young age due to a curse .
• Kukoo and Malcolm Murad are mentioned only once in the book. In the series, they can be seen as Ganesh's lover or as contract killer in important supporting roles.
• In contrast to her character Kukoo, Kubra Sait is not transgender , which is why she had to wear an artificial penis for the role .
• In addition to Hindi, the characters speak other Indian languages ​​such as Marathi , Punjabi and Gujarati . According to director Anurag Kashyap, this is to convey to viewers what India really is like.
• Rajeev Kumar Sinha, a member of the Indian National Congress , and Suresh Shyamal Gupta, the president of India's largest trade union , filed a lawsuit against Netflix and lead actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui on July 10, 2018 , alleging that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of Siddiquis was in one scene Figure Ganesh Gaitonde being offended. Gandhi's son Rahul Gandhi said four days later on Twitter that freedom of expression was a fundamental right in a democracy . He added that his father lived and died in the service of India and the views of a fictional character on a web series would never change that. Although Sinha then withdrew his lawsuit, Netflix announced on July 19, 2018 that a passage in the English subtitles had been changed and the alleged insult had been removed.

reception

In the Internet Movie Database, the series received a rating of 8.9 stars based on 54,810 votes. On Rotten Tomatoes , she received 92 percent from the critics and 95 percent from the viewers (as of July 11, 2019).

Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter says, “The Godfather of Bombay has clear flaws (the clichés in the plot, some avoidable bad choices the characters make), but there is also something compelling about showing India's bleak, dark core in contrast to happy dance scenes exploding with color ”.

“(...) Despite its verve and visual inventiveness, the series feels muddled and a little wearying at times. (And a lot of cultural and historical references will go over the head of non-Indian viewers.) But as Gaitonde says, his story is like a scorpion - once it stings you, you're done for. "

“Despite its verve and visual imagination, the series can seem confused and a little tiring at times. (And many of the cultural and historical allusions will escape non-Indian viewers). But as Gaitonde says, his story is like a scorpion - if you get stung once, you are finished. "

- Mike Hale : The New York Times

nomination

In 2019, the series was nominated for an International Emmy Award in the Best Drama Series category.

Web links

• The Godfather of Bombay in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• The Godfather of Bombay on Netflix
• The godfather of Bombay at Fernsehserien.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alaka Sahani: Anurag Kashyap: Vikram Chandra has written amazing love letters to Vikramaditya Motwane after watching Sacred Games. In: The Indian Express . July 6, 2018, accessed on July 11, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Vidhi Choudhary: Sacred Games: How India's first Netflix original came together. In: Hindustan Times . July 7, 2018, accessed on July 11, 2019 . 
3. ↑ Ananya Bhattacharya: Netflix wants Indian shows like Sacred Games to go global like Narcos. In: Quartz India. July 4, 2018, accessed September 13, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Sacred Games 2 trailer: Nawazuddin Siddiqui drops major clue about Mumbai's fate, Pankaj Tripathi holds the key. In: Hindustan Times. July 9, 2019, accessed July 11, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Confused by Sacred Games' use of Hindu mythology? Let's decode episode titles. In: Hindustan Times. July 12, 2018, accessed on July 11, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Soumya Rao: How 'Sacred Games' stays true to the source novel but so turns it on its head. In: Scroll.in. July 10, 2018, accessed on July 11, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Mohar Basu: Kubbra Sait on playing transgender in Sacred Games: Even had a prosthetic penis. In: Mid Day. July 5, 2018, accessed on July 11, 2019 . 
8. ^ Anahita Panicker: What went down on a day-long shoot of 'Sacred Games' in Mumbai. In: The Hindu . July 5, 2018, accessed on July 11, 2019 . 
9. ↑ Aloke Tikku: 'Freedom Of Expression', Says Rahul Gandhi On Sacred Games Row. In: NDTV. July 13, 2018, accessed on July 11, 2019 . 
10. ^ Sacred Games: Netflix alters controversial subtitles insulting Rajiv Gandhi after Congress backlash. In: Firstpost. July 20, 2018, accessed July 11, 2019 . 
11. ↑ Sacred Games: Season 1 - Rotten Tomatoes. In: Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved September 13, 2018 . 
12. ↑ Tim Goodman, 'Sacred Games': TV Review. In: The Hollywood Reporter . June 7, 2018, accessed July 11, 2019 . 
13. ↑ Mike Hale: Review: The Criminal Life in Mumbai in 'Sacred Games' . In: nytimes.com . July 6, 2017. Retrieved September 13, 2018.
14. ↑ Rohini Chatterji: Radhika Apte, 'Lust Stories', 'Sacred Games' Among 4 Nominations For International Emmys. In: Huffpost India . September 20, 2019, accessed December 13, 2019 .