This month Thomas Crowley charts out Bollywood’s fascination with the don, the almost mythical Dawood Ibrahim.
Literary critics often note that Satan is the most compelling character in Paradise Lost, the 17th-century epic poem penned by devout Christian John Milton. Fast forward to 21st-century India, and a new devil is gracing the silver screen: a cold, calculating character, yet an oddly compelling and charismatic one. He is based on a real-life don, but in the many films portraying him, they don’t use his name; instead, he is Malik Bhai, or Shoaib Khan, or, Iqbal Seth, or Dilawar Haksar. The best of these films, Company, even contains the following dialogue between the don’s lover and the gangster himself:
“You’re really a Satan.”
“There’s a Satan in everyone.”
Of course, the films mostly deny that they are portrayals, or even loose interpretations, of real-life events, perhaps for fear of offending the gangsters that have such a strong influence in the film industry. The makers of Shootout at Wadala, despite acknowledging that they have based much of their film on the meticulously researched 2012 book Dongri to Dubai, feel compelled to mention that “there remain controversial grey areas in Bombay’s history of crime.” Once Upon a Time in Mumbai is even more non-committal, claiming that “all characters, names, places and events depicted in this film are purely fictitious,” and, what is more, the film is “not intended to hurt any moral, religious or sentimental feeling of any community, caste or person.”
OK, since this column is not about a Bollywood movie, we can stop beating around the bush. The don in question is, of course, Dawood Ibrahim, who continues to be a potent muse and bete noire for many Bollywood producers and directors. An odd combination of gangster, bogeyman, and terrorist, he is Bollywood’s leading anti-hero.
Company is old news, and Ram Gopal Varma’s mastery of Mumbai Noir a well-known fact. What’s remarkable is that, eleven years after Varma’s definitive take on the D-company, Dawood’s exploits are still ripe for cinematic portrayal. In 2013 alone (in fact, in a four-month span), his avatars appeared in three blockbuster films: Once Upon A Time in Mumbai Dobaara, D-Day, and Shootout at Wadala. Through the years, his character has been played by a range of stars, including Rishi Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan, Emraan Hashmi, and Sonu Sood.
His empire has spread so widely in so many directions – real estate, film, tobacco, pirated DVDs, smuggling, money-laundering – that he tends to get blamed for everything, and is thus given a power even greater than he actually wields. In Shootout at Wadala, he even gets credit for coining the term “encounter.”
For a man so famous – and so frequently mimicked on the big screen – surprisingly little is known about Dawood himself. The basic outlines of his life have long become the stuff of myth: his rocky relationship with his father, a respected policeman; his rise through the ranks of the Mumbai underworld; his alleged role in the 1993 Mumbai bombings; his flight to Dubai, then Karachi. His empire has spread so widely in so many directions – real estate, film, tobacco, pirated DVDs, smuggling, money-laundering – that he tends to get blamed for everything, and is thus given a power even greater than he actually wields. In Shootout at Wadala, he even gets credit for coining the term “encounter.” But for all this, the public knows little about the real Dawood. Even S. Hussain Zaidi, author of Dongri to Dubai and perhaps the foremost expert of the Indian underworld, has to admit: “The man, of course, will forever be elusive; the real Dawood may remain a myth.”
The aura of mystery around Dawood allows directors to interpret his character however they wish. Varma, by far the best director of Dawood-inspired films, also gives far and away the most nuanced and sympathetic portrait of Dawood and the Mumbai mafia scene as a whole. In Company, Ajay Devgan’s Dawood is cool, calculating and not adverse to ruthless violence, but he is also surprisingly thoughtful and compassionate. As the perceptive top cop in the film notes, “It’s not about one man. It’s about the system.” And Varma explores what makes that system tick: first and foremost, a concern for profit, aided by complicit government officials and policemen.
Varma also neatly sidesteps many of the more controversial issues surrounding Dawood: his residence in Pakistan, his cooperation with the ISI, his designation by the U.S. as a global terrorist. For Varma’s Dawood (and for the real Dawood, if Zaidi’s account is correct), religion and nationality matter little: the important thing is business. It’s no accident that the film is called Company.
The Ekta Kapoor-produced gangster films, not surprisingly, have a more melodramatic and jingoistic take on Dawood. Once Upon a Time in Mumbai seems to single-handedly blame the 1993 attacks on Dawood, calling it “Mumbai’s greatest betrayal.” (Of course, since he sold tickets, they were happy to bring this betrayer back in Once Upon Ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara). Shootout at Wadala features the Dawood character admonishing a fellow Muslim gangster for trying to save the life of a Hindu don. The film also lionizes the killer of Dawood’s elder brother. In the film, the killer, played by John Abraham, is portrayed as a devout Hindu who was wronged by the police and forced into a life of crime. (Though this is supposedly based on Zaidi’s book, Zaidi himself describes the killer as ruthless and vain.)
Shootout at Wadala features Anil Kapoor as the cop who masterminds Mumbai’s very first encounter. Last month, I wrote about the Indian version of the TV show 24, which stars Anil Kapoor as the heroic Anti-Terrorist Unit official, willing to break rules to save his country. He seems to be playing a similar role in Shootout, a man of the law who has to make some exceptions when dealing with unscrupulous bad guys. But in the end, Abraham is the hero, and in the closing frames, the brutality of police encounters is underscored.
The real cinematic counterpart of 24 is D-Day, which features Rishi Kapoor as sometimes-menacing, sometimes-charming Ibrahim. The film ends (spoiler alert!) with brash good guy Arjun Rampal shooting Dawood point blank after successfully extracting him from Pakistan and bringing him to Indian soil. Rampal then declares himself the face of “new India.” Talk about nationalist wish-fulfillment.
Luckily for Dawood, this was just one portrayal out of many. Chances are, a new film will soon come along with yet another vision of the Satan next door.
