Sanjay Gupta is the connoisseur of sorts when it comes to Gangster dramas on celluloid and the film-maker sure knows how to make these adrenaline-pumping stories so appealing. Perhaps, nobody does it better than him. So, I’m pretty curious now to hear that the Kaante director has acquired the rights to make a series on Baby Patankar’s life who created the country’s biggest Narcotics Empire and is popularly called Mumbai’s Meow Meow Queen.
This won’t be a film but rather a web series produced under Gupta’s banner White Feather Films. The Meow Meow Queen will be a 10-episode series which would be continued into multiple seasons. Right now, the series is being penned and it will be helmed by Sanjay Gupta along with Samit Kakkad.
Talking about this project, Gupta said,
“I have been waiting for the right material to come by. Crime being my forte and I enjoy the beat very much. Here is a story that deserves to be told in all its glory.”
In the mid-1980s, Patankar was a domestic worker. With two kids in tow, the lady was thrown out of her house by an abusive husband. She lived in the Worli slums and made ends meet by delivering milk bottles. She rose from there to create and control the biggest narcotics empire in India.
He further added,
“Her case was active till 2015. She was arrested after 120 kilos of MDMA was found in her residence. Our story traces her rise to power, how she took over what was popular presumed as a male bastion, her romance with a cop and how she exploited the relationship. The rivalry with existing drug lords who cut off her supplies, is another facet we will focus on. True stories like these are fascinating.”
The series will be co-produced by Bhushan Kumar and the makers are presently in talks with a major OTT platform for the streaming rights. I’m hoping this one to be really engaging and intriguing especially since it’s coming as a series!