‘Cartel’ released on 20th August and emerged as an instant hit. Set in current times, this 14 episode long epic series tells the tale about a lady (Supriya Pathak) who runs a gangster world ‘Cartel’ and controls the entire Mumbai. While the world believes that she would choose her son (Rithvik Dhanjani) as her successor, she surprises one and all when she does the unthinkable and chooses her nephew (Tanuj Virwani) instead to run the show post her retirement.
“Well, in our own way, we have challenged the code of nepotism that prevails even in the gangster world. Yes, in the web series I belong to the family of gangsters but then had nepotism prevailed, the logical successor was someone else. There is this whole chain of event that begins, and eventually leading to something far deadlier and sinister, when this code is broken. That was a really exciting thing to happen in Cartel,” says Tanuj, who has also been seen in ‘The Tattoo Murders’ (2021), ‘Murder Meri Jaan’ (2021) and ‘Tandoor’ (2021).
He was a gangster in ‘The Tattoo Murders’ (2021) as well as in ‘Kamathipura’ (2021).
Tanuj Virwani shares, “That was a different sort of gangster since he was a kingpin but more local in appeal. Moreover, the story was about the revenge that he wants to take and his nemesis (Meerra Chopra, playing a cop) is also planning. Here it’s different in Cartel as it’s about protecting one’s own family as well which has gone dysfunctional. When a Cartel is ruling for decades, it needs to be protected as well to keep sanity. That’s where I come into picture.”
In the web series, he gets to act opposite Supriya Pathak, who also started in the industry around the same time as Tanuj’s mother Rati Agnihotri.
Chuckles Tanuj, “Well, I should check with my mom if she and Supriya ma’m did work together in any films. Do you know of any? You know, it was such an honour to work with her. She is so good. What a performer! I got goosebumps when we did our scenes together. She was very kind and gracious with me. I am fairly new and she was like a mother to all of us on the sets.”
Meanwhile, now that first season has ended on a cliffhanger, one waits to see Major Bhau getting in action all over again in the action packed second season.
