When the subject of a film or series is a successful company that still exists and thrives today, there's always the risk that the storytelling will feel more like corporate promotion than compelling drama.

That's exactly the concern one might have going into Made in India: A Titan Story, Amazon MX Player's six-episode series based on journalist Vinay Kamath's book Titan: Inside India's Most Successful Consumer Brand.

After all, this is the story of Titan, one of India's most recognisable brands. Its founder, Xerxes Desai, wasn’t an outsider fighting impossible odds. He already belonged to the Tata ecosystem and had the support of one of India’s most respected business leaders, J.R.D. Tata.

In theory, this show doesn't have the ingredients of a traditional underdog story. Yet, much to its credit, Made in India: A Titan Story turns out to be far more engaging than expected.

Rather than functioning as a celebration of a brand, the series focuses on the people who dared to imagine it. At its heart, this is a story about vision, persistence and the belief that India could create a world-class product at a time when imported goods carried far greater prestige.

Directed by Robby Grewal, the series begins with Xerxes Desai's (Jim Sarbh) journey within the Tata Group before tracing the origins of Titan Watches. The spark comes from a combination of circumstances — the growing demand for imported watches, rampant smuggling, and a dismissive attitude from Swiss watchmakers who doubted India's ability to produce premium timepieces.

What follows is the painstaking process of building Titan from the ground up.

The show excels in depicting the realities of that journey. There are no overnight successes here. The Titan team faces bureaucratic hurdles, rejected loans, licensing challenges, manufacturing problems and disappointing sales figures. Instead of reducing these moments to simple obstacles that are quickly overcome, the series takes time to show how every breakthrough is earned.

One of the biggest strengths of the writing is that it avoids turning business decisions into dry exposition. Meetings, presentations and strategic discussions are staged with enough dramatic weight to keep viewers invested. Whether it's finding the right name for the brand, recruiting talented professionals, developing new watch designs or launching marketing campaigns, the show understands that ideas can be just as exciting as action when they're tied to people who genuinely care about what they're building.

The narrative is also held together by a recurring theme: time.

Naturally, a series about watches would use time as a metaphor, but Made in India does so with surprising consistency. Characters are constantly wrestling with it in different ways. Xerxes is so consumed by his mission that life outside work often passes him by.

Akash (Vaibhav Tatwawadi), one of Titan's key architects, becomes more cautious because of his father's declining memory. Megha (Kaveri Seth), the company's marketing head, faces increasing pressure from her family as she balances career ambitions with expectations around marriage.

These personal stories give the larger corporate narrative an emotional dimension that prevents it from feeling like a business case study. They play a major role in making the series work.

Jim Sarbh delivers one of his finest performances as Xerxes Desai. He captures both the brilliance and complexity of a man driven by a dream that many around him consider unrealistic. Sarbh resists the temptation to turn Xerxes into a straightforward hero. Instead, he portrays someone whose confidence often borders on stubbornness, whose ambition occasionally creates friction, and whose belief in his vision never wavers.

Equally impressive is Naseeruddin Shah as J.R.D. Tata. He doesn't need dramatic speeches to command attention. A look, a smile or a few carefully chosen words are enough to establish why everyone around him seeks his approval.

The relationship between J.R.D. and Xerxes becomes one of the show's most emotional threads.

The series also does a fine job recreating a changing India. Archival footage, vintage photographs and classic Bollywood songs are woven into the narrative to evoke a period when the country was gradually embracing consumer culture and modern aspirations.