Matka King

Can a house of cards be built on honesty and integrity? Can it hold the weight of ambition? Director Nagraj Manjule turns the irony into an eight-episode series that gives increasing returns. Inspired by the life of Ratan Khatri, the controversial figure who democratised the way Bombay gambled in the 1960s and 1970s by transforming a simple household earthen pot — used in homes for storing water — into a symbol of a massive underground gambling empire, the character-driven series captures how he positioned Matka not just as clever branding but a strategic innovation that made the game of numbers accessible, transparent, and scalable.

Looking at the glittering malls, spiffy offices, high-end restaurants and luxury high rises of Lower Parel today, it’s tough to imagine that five decades ago, this was a part of Mumbai – or Bombay as it was then called – the elite never stepped into. This was where textile mills thrived and workers went on a much-politicised strike when the first move was made to down the shutters and turn the area into swank, upper-crust commercial and residential property. This was also where politics and the police force played their part when Matka King Ratan Khatri came up with a unique gamble and prospered beyond imagination. Winning and losing in large numbers became an addiction for workers of the area while elsewhere too, the Matka King’s game was played in various towns and rural districts.

50 के दशक में मुंबई की कपड़ा मिलों के इलाके में काम करने वाले रतन खत्री ने देखा कि कल्याणजी भगत नाम का एक आदमी न्यूयॉर्क कॉटन एक्सचैंज में कपास के चढ़ते-गिरते भावों पर लोगों से सट्टा लगवाता है। तब रतन खत्री ने एक नया खेल शुरू किया। जुए के इस खेल को रोचक बनाते हुए वह एक मटके में ताश के पत्ते डाल कर सबके सामने निकालता और जीतने वालों को तुरंत पैसे देता। कुछ ही सालों में उसका यह खेल ‘मटका’ पूरे देश में फैल गया। एक दिन में एक करोड़ रुपए तक का सट्टा लगने लगा और लोग उसे ‘मटका किंग’ तक कहने लगे। बाद में वह फिल्म निर्माण में भी घुसा। 1975 में इमरजैंसी लगी तो उसे जेल में भी डाला गया। वहां से छूट कर उसने फिर यह काम शुरू कर दिया और 90 के दशक तक सक्रिय रहा। 2020 में रतन खत्री की मृत्यु हुई।

If Matka King were a person, he would be slapped with a restraining order for dangerously stalking a celebrity named Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story (2020). The new Prime series feels like a play-by-play simulation of the breakout Sony LIV hit: tonally similar, historically and stylistically connected, antihero protagonists with identical narrative arcs and beats and conflicts and rise-and-fall rhythms and even theme music. The likeness is uncanny, and as is often the case, the stalker is inferior in every department. I would have bet my (non-existent) property on this dream director-actor alliance. In terms of the storytelling template, it has a bit of Hansal Mehta and some Neeraj Pandey, but director Nagraj Manjule (Fandry, Sairat, Jhund) himself seems to be missing. Loosely inspired by the life of Ratan Khatri, a Sindhi cotton trader who reinvented gambling with a popular new game in 1960s Bombay, Matka King stays too generic to scale the peak of a genre that treads the thin line between glorifying and humanising careers of crime. The sense of deja vu is strong, and Manjule’s voice is at sea with the scale of a show that’s designed to replicate rather than create.

Smoke-filled, dimly-lit joints strewn with cards, cash and the looming threat of raids or shutdown above their heads, the shady ‘jua addas’ enjoyed a frequent appearance in several Hindi movies of the 1970s and 1980s. Despite my familiarity with the term, thanks to movies like Arjun and Dharmatma, I had no idea just how exactly the matka format of gambling works until Vijay Varma’s Brij Bhatti got down to explaining its nitty-gritties in and as Matka King. Directed by Nagraj Popatrao Manjule, the eight-part series based on Ashish Aryan’s concept draws titular as well as character inspiration from the trailblazer of the gambling world, Ratan Khatri.