With Pankaj Tripathi going full throttle as Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Vicky Kaushal acquitting himself well as Sam Manekshaw, true life stories here and in the West are hitting the big time. The five-award haul by Oppenheimer at the Golden Globes was a sturdy indicator of the audience interest in a well-told factual story. Christopher Nolan’s layered, non-linear retelling of how Oppenheimer created the atomic bomb, and the tugs of conscience thereafter, was one big blast of a biopic, the awards offering proof of intense creativity in every department of filmmaking. Apart from the best drama and best director awards, the overwhelming background score (Ludwig Goransson) that heaved, sighed and burst into a crescendo along with the performers also got its due recognition. When Cillian Murphy, who played the father of the atom bomb, and Robert Downey Jr, cast as the atomic energy commissioner opposed to Oppenheimer, won awards for their performances, it was evidence of the pitch at which protagonist and antagonist worked in tandem to create a historic biopic.

Closer home, the scale is not as lavish but the coming together of creative departments is beginning to show in our biopics. On OTT, director Hansal Mehta has tasted blood with the success of his Scam franchise, which sold the stories on stock exchange bull Harshad Mehta and stamp paper counterfeiter Abdul Telgi.

Crime and big money hold a particular fascination. Subrata Roy, saluted as Saharashri, died outside jail but still a bail bird. Years ago, for an interview with him, I was driven to his impressive Amby Valley, where I gifted him a bottle of scotch. Roy was embarrassed; he wasn’t used to journos gifting him anything. But he’d perceptively seen my son holding a stuffed toy dog. When we came back to Mumbai, a huge toy dog awaited us as Roy’s return gift.

During the meeting, he’d lamented that all of us had such few kids. “We should have more because the quality we bring to the world is superior,” he had reasoned. But life caught up in such a way that his two sons can’t come to India due to legal complications. However, they are keen to make a biopic to immortalise their father. Will it be warts, women and all? Roy did have a special connection with singer Sapna Mukherjee, best known for Oye oye from Tridev (1989). There was a touch of the fascist too — he had his own Sahara pranam, which every person under his umbrella (celebrities included) had to use as a greeting instead of a namaskar or a handshake. The Amby Valley staff also shivered in his presence and Roy rarely came to an event on his own — he had to be preceded by a knot of suited men. Even when Boney Kapoor’s father passed away, he came to offer condolences with his vanguard. There’s another lasting visual of Roy from a wedding at Sahara City in Lucknow, where a chartered flight had flown down all the celebrities of Mumbai. My last glimpse was of an ecstatic Roy personally driving Shah Rukh Khan around his territory. He loved glamour. Hopefully, his biopic will not be a hagiography.

While that’s yet to take shape, Hansal’s mega series on Gandhi, aptly announced on October 2, is steaming ahead. The most interesting casting news is that of a real-life couple playing Gandhi and Kasturba. Do check out pretty Gujarati actress Bhamini Oza in shows like Kathal: A Jackfruit Mystery on Netflix. Bhamini and Pratik Gandhi have been happily married for over 15 years and the twosome playing Gandhi and
Kasturba will make headlines as the show progresses.

Meanwhile, there will soon be a biopic from Govinda too, who’s not been completely somnolent.

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author