Mrunmayee Lagoo, the writer of the streaming show ‘Scoop’, has shared the reason behind the show going beyond the scope of the book ‘Behind Bars in Byculla: My Days in Prison’ which is the source material for the book.
She told IANS that the world of print media intrigued the makers and a lot of meat for the show’s story was in the events that predated the jail time of Jigna Vora, the author of the book who was also a crime reporter.
Mrunmayee said: “To go beyond the book, we realised quite early that we will have to focus on the lead character’s journey and to see the kind of person that she was and what she was chasing and then see her go through all of this. It would be safe to say that she was made a scapegoat and the reason we wanted to go beyond the book was because the world of print media was very enchanting, the newsrooms, the culture and to bring that alive.”
Monika Shergill, VP Content of Netflix India, shared that ‘Behind Bars in Byculla: My Days in Prison’ was one of the several material pitched to Netflix by the producers.
She said: “Netflix has been working on stories that emanate from real life events, across the spectrum. This book was a part of several books that the producer had while discussing with us and the reason we decided to go with this one was because it was very fascinating and it was more on the prison part. That grabbed the attention.”
She added: “We were like, ‘Okay, this world of prison that this character is going through is very interesting but what was more interesting was the events that predated the prison life. A female crime journalist in those times and the whole underworld, people have seen all of this through the eyes of the cops. To bring that to screen was intriguing.”
‘Scoop’ is streaming on Netflix.
