After playing police officer Rakesh Maria in Black Friday, sources say Kay Kay Menon roped in to portray Dawood Ibrahim's father in Farhan's web series on the underworld
Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; December 24, 2019)

Years after he portrayed the role of then-DCP Rakesh Maria in Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday (2007), it appears Kay Kay Menon will be part of another screen adaptation of author S Hussain Zaidi's books. mid-day has learnt that the actor will slip into the role of Dawood Ibrahim's father, Ibrahim Kaskar, in Excel Entertainment's upcoming web series that traces the rise and fall of underworld dons. Backed by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani, the 10-part series is based on Zaidi's work, Dongri To Dubai.

A source reveals, "Dawood's chapter touches upon his father, who was a head constable in the Mumbai Police. The makers were keen on Kay Kay as they felt he would be able to bring grit as well as fragility to the character. The cast is currently undergoing workshops before the series goes on floors next month."

mid-day reached out to Menon who remained unavailable for comment.

Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; December 1, 2019)

After wrapping up the second editions of Inside Edge and Mirzapur, Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani of Excel Entertainment are now concentrating on their next web series. Earlier this year, the duo announced their plan to adapt S Hussain Zaidi's book Dongri To Dubai into a web series.

The story traces the rise and fall of underworld dons in a three-part series of 10 episodes each, writing for which is underway. A source reveals that casting has begun, "Makers think Avinash [Tiwary] fits the role of Dawood [Ibrahim] perfectly."

Tiwary will essay the role of a young Dawood. "The series will trace Dawood's journey and they needed a young actor who could showcase that [growing up phase]. The actor will undergo thorough preparation including a physical transformation," added the source. The series is expected to go on the floor early next year.

The popular ‘get in, take out militants’ sentiment has existed long before it got actualised for the general public with the 2016 and 2019 surgical strikes. Before that, the shroud of mystery around cross-border ops was a vacuum gladly filled by Bollywood, with several films — successfully or not — fulfilling popular fantasy
Abhimanyu Mathur (BOMBAY TIMES; March 1, 2019)

When 12 Mirage 2000 jets of the Indian Air Force flew across the LoC in the early hours of February 26 to target terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad’s training camps in Balakot, Chakothi, and Muzaffarabad, it marked a seminal moment for India. Not only was it the first time in over four decades that Indian fighter jets crossed the LoC, it was also the first time ever that the Indian forces were going for a terror mastermind beyond the Indian boundaries. Senior Jaish leader Maulana Yousuf Azhar was one of the targets at the Balakot camp. While in reality, it may have been the first-of-its-kind operation, on screen, India has time and again carried out successful operations behind enemy lines, bringing to justice terror masterminds (based on characters) like Hafiz Saeed, Maulana Masood Azhar, and Dawood Ibrahim.


WHEN BOLLYWOOD TURNED CROSS-BORDER AVENGER

The first film to tackle this was Zameen in 2003. Based on the IC-814 hijacking, the movie saw an army officer (Ajay Devgn) and a cop (Abhishek Bachchan) rescue hostages from a hijacked plane in Pak-occupied-Kashmir and nab the mastermind Baba Zaheer (based on Masood Azhar). Indian cinema did not attempt another covert terror mastermind extraction for another decade till Nikhil Advani had the intelligence forces bring back a Dawood Ibrahim clone in the 2013 film, D-Day. The director tells us, “The idea of D-Day germinated when the US went to get Osama Bin Laden on May 2, 2011. So, when I was driving from my house to my office, my driver asked me that if USA can do this, why can’t India do it, why can’t we bring Dawood Ibrahim? When I reached office, all my assistants were on social media and the only question doing the rounds was, why couldn’t India do it? So, what occurred to me was whether it was someone like my chauffeur, who was completely uneducated, or my assistants, who were graduates from FTII, Jamia, the conversation was the same. The question, the thought, resonated across social and class structures. There was this whole notion of why does India tend to not retaliate or not do what is possible.”

If the US had 9/11, India had its own tragedy to draw inspiration from. While the terrorists who executed the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai were either killed or captured and executed later, there has been a feeling that their handlers and the masterminds have remained unpunished. Hussain Zaidi’s book Mumbai Avengers chronicled a fictitious operation of Indian forces bringing back the 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed (Haaris Saeed in the book) back to India to face trial. The book inspired the 2015 film, Phantom. Speaking to us prior to the film’s release, director Kabir Khan had said, “This is a film that is in some way living out the fantasy of a lot of people in this country. Having said that, it is in no way saying that this is what India should do, as there are many other reasons and that counterpoint is also present in the film as to why India, in reality, does not do it. We have never believed in vigilante justice. We have never gone into this cowboy kind of adventure that America does.” The same year saw the release of Baby. The Neeraj Pandey film saw an Indian task force capture and bring back Pak-based terror mastermind Maulana (Masood Azhar anyone?) from UAE to India. “Equal measures of fiction and research was bound together in the script of Baby. It is my ode to those unknown heroes, who give a damn and put the country before self to keep us safe in our homes,” Neeraj Pandey had said while talking about what prompted him to make the film.

The common thread in all these films is that they were covert operations. A small team, mostly led by intelligence operatives, crosses enemy lines and brings back the mastermind without much pomp and show. In contrast, when the US went to capture and kill Laden, they had two choppers and dozens of Navy SEALs on the ground in Pakistani territory. Kabir Khan had expressed his desire to see India launch such an operation, but cautiously added why he feels it would remain on the screen only. “I sometimes do feel I wish I could see such a scenario being played out, but I also understand the larger ramifications. So, I also understand that this kind of adventure can only be carried out in cinema and not in real life,” the director had told us in 2015.

The IAF operation has been closer to the American approach in that regard. The government’s stance that this is a ‘new India that strikes back’ is reflected in that approach. Filmmakers, however, say that the situation might have changed, but their films won’t. Even if they made them today, they would still make them much the same way. D-Day director Nikhil Advani tells us, “I don’t think a film like D-Day would be written any differently today. D-Day is about bringing Dawood Ibrahim back. It will be the same thing today. We can’t go into Karachi. There are apparently satellite photographs as evidence that Dawood stays at Clifton, Karachi, but Pakistan won’t agree to it. Bringing Dawood the way we have shown in the film is still dramatic, but there are various missions that have been tabled, but couldn’t get through.”

— With inputs from Divya Kaushik


CROSS-BORDER OPERATIONS ON SCREEN

ZAMEEN (2003)
Starring: Ajay Devgn, Abhishek Bachchan, Bipasha Basu
Directed by: Rohit Shetty
Plot: After a terrorist who masterminded an attack on the Indian Parliament (Baba Zaheer, based on Maulana Masood Azhar) is captured by the Indian Army, his organisation hijacks a plane and takes it to PoK, demanding their leader’s release. The Indian Army, assisted by an ACP from the Anti-Terrorist Squad, undertakes a daring rescue operation, freeing all the hostages, recapturing the freed Baba Zaheer, and throwing him out of a helicopter. The entire rescue operation was inspired by the Israel Defence Forces’ famous rescue of their hostages from a hijacked plane at the Entebbe Airport in 1976.

D-DAY (2013)
Starring: Irrfan, Rishi Kapoor, Arjun Rampal
Directed by: Nikhil Advani
Plot: An undercover RAW operative in Pakistan (Irrfan) is tasked with finding ways to assassinate a D-company leader, identified in the film by his codename Goldman (Rishi Kapoor). Goldman’s appearance and the fact that his son is to marry a Pakistani cricketer’s daughter are obvious reference to Dawood Ibrahim. In the end, a small team of Indian Army and intelligence operatives capture Goldman from his son’s wedding and bring him to Indian territory, before shooting him. Coincidentally, the film’s tagline was ‘India Strikes Back’, one of the trending hashtags after the IAF mission this week.


BABY (2015)
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Anupam Kher, Taapsee Pannu, Rana Daggubati.
Directed by: Neeraj Pandey
Plot: The film follows the journey of a task force codenamed Baby that was formed after the 26/11 attacks. They find and eliminate terror threats to India from beyond Indian borders and during one such mission, encounter the 26/11 mastermind (identified as Maulana Mohammad Saeed Rahman) in Dubai. The team captures and brings Maulana back to India and hands him over to the army in secret.

PHANTOM (2015)
Starring: Saif Ali Khan, Katrina Kaif. Directed by: Kabir Khan
Plot: A team of RAW and army operatives get together to bring the perpetrators and planners of the 26/11 attacks to justice. The film used real names like David Headley, while slightly tweaking the name of the alleged mastermind and Lashkar-e-Taiba founder, Hafiz Saeed to Haaris Saeed. The film saw the heroes find and kill all major planners of the attack, one after the other. The plot was inspired by Israeli intelligence Mossad’s assassination of all the Palestinian attackers involved in the 1972 Munich attack.

Vijay Tagore (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 26, 2018)

Almost a week after it was reported that Ram Gopal Varma is gearing up to make the ‘real’ Sanjay Dutt biopic (Mirror, July 20), it has emerged that the filmmaker is also putting together a five-part series on his favourite subject, Dawood Ibrahim. Titled D Company, it will kick off soon and the makers have decided to call the central characters by their real names, including Dawood, Chhota Rajan, Abu Salem and Chhota Shakeel, among others. It marks RGV’s reunion with Madhu Mantena, who has previously produced his Rann and Rakta Charitra.

The script has been locked while the cast is being finalised. “The research came from my extensive interactions over 20 years with gangsters, encounter cops, middlemen and film people involved with the underworld. The series will not be a Dawood biopic but will present the big picture of D-Company, from its inception to its growth as the most dreaded organisation in India’s criminal history,” Varma, tells Mirror.

It will chronicle the rise and escape of Dawood, who overthrew the Pathan gang, as well as his time in Dubai, when he hobnobbed with film stars. It will also highlight incidents like the Babri Masjid demolition and the Mumbai blasts to trace D-Company’s transition from an underworld unit to a terror factory.

Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; November 17, 2017)

Musician Nadeem Saifi has suggested that he may take legal action against the media publication that alluded to his association with Dawood Ibrahim, after revelations on Monday indicated that the artiste was apparently being protected by the underworld don. “I am consulting my lawyers. If they advice me to do so, I may take action,” Saifi tells mid-day.

The musician, one half of the popular duo Nadeem-Shravan, jetted off to UK after his name cropped up in the 1997 murder case of Gulshan Kumar. The media outlet suggested that call intercepts dating to 2015 were indicative that Saifi may have been getting protection from Ibrahim on foreign turf. The developments arise in the wake of the Modi government’s pursuit of India’s extradition pleas for fugitives overseas.

Rubbishing the reports, Saifi, who is currently residing in Dubai, says, “These are baseless allegations. People are trying to defame me. The story refers to a conversation tapped in 2015 . Where were these guys for two years? Since they [Indian government] don’t have anything [development] in the Gulshan Kumar case, they are trying to frame me. I am ready to be investigated. They can check my bank accounts. I am being made a scapegoat. No one is protecting me. I have never spoken to anyone.”

The report speaks of a reference to a certain “Ustad”, a “goggled man” and a “London friend” in the intercepts, and suggests that they may be indicative of Saifi. But, the musician questions how the code names point towards him. “I don’t wear them [goggles], and I am not an ustad. Have they mentioned my name in the conversation?”

He also points out that the transcript refers to a singer, an art, he says, he isn’t associated with. “When did I sing? I am a music composer.” Finally, he says he could not be a ‘London friend’, given that he has been residing in Dubai for the last 10 years.

Saifi’s unwillingness to return to India stems from a fear of being framed. "There are no cases pending against me, but, I fear that if I come back, they will arrest me. I don’t want my family to be tortured. In fact, my parents are ailing, but, I am not able to see them.”

Saifi also says that the Indian government has been inaccurate in associating him with the case. “The UK High Court judgment said that ‘the accusation of murder and conspiracy made against this applicant is not made in good faith’. I am a free man. I have won five court cases. I have proved my innocence.”

Samiullah Khan (MID-DAY; September 25, 2017)

While Shraddha Kapoor-starrer Haseena Parkar failed to impress critics, it has found some fans in the family of the notorious Appa, on whom the movie is based. The Thane Crime Branch, which is currently investigating extortion charges against Parkar's brother Iqbal Kaskar, received that the Parkar and Kaskar families were present for a special screening of the movie at a multiplex in Dubai.

Crime Branch sources said the family were full of praise for the movie on social media

According to the information received by the Thane police, the screening was organised at the Reel Cinemas in the Dubai Mall, by Parkar’s son Alishah on the day of its release. “The family had chosen a theatre which was not running Haseena Parkar to avoid eyeballs of the investigating agencies,” said a Thane Crime Branch officer who is close to the investigations of extortion charges against Parkar’s brother Iqbal Kaskar.

Son organises
According to Crime Branch sources, Alishah had organised the special show for his family and friends, which included family members of Kaskar and fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

The Kaskar and Parkar families were allegedly stunned with Kapoor’s onscreen portrayal of Haseena. They were all praises for the actor, who has otherwise been receiving brickbats for her performance as the feared woman don. Few of them even shared their experience on their Facebook walls, by tagging Alishah and other relatives.

When mid-day contacted the staff of Dubai’s Reel Cinemas, they outrightly denied screening the movie in their cinemas, adding however, that if such a screening were held they would not be able to share information about it with anyone.

Despite their denials, a Facebook post about the alleged screening proves otherwise. A member of the Kaskar family has put Reel Cinemas as the location in the post, in which Alishah has also been tagged. With a slew of emojis, this member called it an ‘amazing movie’. mid-day reached out to Furqan Khan, the husband of Nahid Khan, who is one of the producers of the movie, for comment but his phone was switched off.

The news of the screening comes days after Thane Commissioner of Police Parambit Singh said they were probing whether Kaskar had funded the movie with money from his extortion racket. The Thane police’s Anti- Extortion Cell arrested Kaskar for allegedly extorting Rs 30 lakh and four flats from a prominent Thane-based builder after issuing threats under Dawood’s name.

Make-up and hair stylist Subhash Shinde takes BT through the two-hour transformation that the actress and her brother Siddhanth underwent every day while working on Apoorva Lakhia's Haseena Parkar
Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; September 21, 2017)

The Thane police, who arrested Dawood’s dreaded brother on Monday night, are investigating if he invested in biopic based on sister Haseena Parkar
Faisal Tandel (MID-DAY; September 20, 2017)

After arresting fugitive Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s brother Iqbal Kaskar late on Monday for allegedly extorting money from builders, the Thane police are now investigating whether any cash from D- Company has flowed into the upcoming movie Haseena Parkar.

Commissioner of Police, Thane, Parambir Singh said, “The gang earlier used to finance movies with the money got through extortion. We will check if any similar investment was made recently.”

The movie Haseena Parkar, on the lady don addressed as Aapaa, is completely based on Kaskar and Dawood’s sister, and the Thane police suspect that extortion money may have been pumped into it. “After Parkar’s death, Kaskar was handling D-Company’s business in Mumbai and Thane from her home in Nagpada. Parkar used to hold a daily darbar there, a practice that Kaskar continued,” said an officer.

In custody
Kaskar was taken into custody from Parkar’s house on Monday night by a team led by Pradeep Sharma, encounter specialist and Anti-Extortion Cell’s senior inspector. The other two arrested are Mumtaz Shaikh, 48, and Israr Ali Sayed Ali, 57. Sharma said, “They were produced in Thane court and sent to police custody for eight days. The process to gather more information and evidence is on.”

The Thane police have also detained three others — Mohammed Yasin Khwaja Shaikh, 48, a drug peddler posing as a cable operator, Iqbal Ismail Parkar, 58, who owns a hotel, and Navan Fernando, 37, who runs a transport business. “They were found with Kaskar, and hence, detained. Probe is on to find out their role in the case. Khwaja claimed Kaskar used to consume cocaine, which he (Khwaja) supplied to him,” said a senior officer.

However, Advocate Shyam Keswani, representing Kaskar, said, “It’s a false case; he’s been arrested only on the basis of a mere allegation. We will take it to the highest level.”

Fear spread all over
The case against Kaskar was registered on a builder’s complaint at Kasarwadavli police station. Singh said names of some corporators and businessmen have also come up. “We have come to know about a corporator who used to help the accused extort money. We are gathering evidence and only after that will book those involved. We haven’t received any evidence of Dawood’s involvement in this, but his name certainly was used for getting money,” he added.

Sources said Kaskar had been threatening builders from Mumbai, Thane and Navi Mumbai. “A Navi Mumbai builder, Hemandra Shah, had to pay Kaskar Rs 3 crore a few years ago. Later, he fled the city and still hasn’t come back due to fear,” said an officer.

Singh said they would take the ED’s help to get details about the accused’s moneylaundering and extortion cases.

Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; September 18, 2017)

Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; September 15, 2017)

Apoorva Lakhia on choosing to tell Haseena Parkar's story and why the Zanjeer remake didn't work
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 11, 2017)

Actor-producer Arjun Rampal opens up about his reel and real life tryst with Arun Gawli
Meena Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; June 23, 2017)

One hears that you were planning a biopic on another gangster when you switched to doing one on Arun Gawli…
Yes, three years ago, director Ashim Ahluwalia and I were planning a film on another don when some guys approached me to play Arun Gawli. They assured me that they had the rights and showed me some computer images which brought out the likeness between us. But the script was terrible, one of those completely fictitious accounts with none of the ‘realness’ of a biopic. I didn’t want to be this guy in a white-kurta pyjama and cap, climbing cables. Even the dialogues were filmi!

If everything was out of sync, how come you still stepped in?
I started reading up on Gawli and found the material engrossing. The man had seen it all, his story spanned decades and I was hooked! What caught my imagination was that people call him “Daddy”. Usually they refer to a don as ‘bhai’ or ‘don’. I realised that although dreaded, he had another side which intrigued me.

Buzz is, you rewrote the script?
I locked myself up in a hotel for two months and put a structure to the story and sent it to Ashim. Both of us then co-wrote the script. Somewhere along the way, the guys who’d approached me earlier didn’t have the rights so the project fizzled out. By then I’d done so much work on the script that I decided to produce it and approached his family, convincing them to give their nod. After that, I met the big man himself and got his blessings.

Tell us about your first interaction with Gawli.
I met him when he was out on parole. The first few times, he was slightly sceptical and I understood that he’s reserved because of his colourful past. For him to accept that someone would be playing him in a film took some adjustment. Also, his story will be out while he’s still living.

What’s your take on him?
He’s not flamboyant, doesn’t go to dance bars and blow up money on bar girls and mistresses. He’s spent half his life in jail but is a Godfearing, family man. At home, there are photographs of Gods everywhere, he is always praying. He commands respect, thousands come to visit him when he’s on parole, yet he’s also dreaded. Mostly, he is quiet, well-mannered and soft-spoken, but you know he’s walked the dark side. After a few meetings, he started opening up to me. I assured him it wouldn’t be a propaganda story, I wanted to tell it the way it is, in a realistic manner. His consent convinced me this was a man with self-confidence. He is the only guy who stood up to Dawood Ibrahim.

You started shooting before he had given his consent, why?
We didn’t have a signed agreement but I’d spoken to his family. By the time he came out on parole, we’d finished one schedule. He was taken aback, wondering how I’d started without his official permission. I pointed out he’d verbally committed to me. He said, “Haan maine toh tujhe zabaan di thi.”

Why did you lock yourself away for a year-and-a-half?
You have to invest a lot to roles like this and Ashim made everything so realistic that during the duration of the shoot, I was living in a different world. Characters like this isolate you and when I was shooting, I rarely wanted to be around people. Even now, I’m tempted to tell someone in Gawli’s style, “Tujhe aake chamkaoon kya?”

The film will be directed by Honey Trehan, will recreate the life of Rahima Khan aka Sapna Didi, who almost got Dawood Ibrahim killed
Kunal M Shah (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 21, 2017)


Piku duo Deepika Padukone and Irrfan Khan is set to reunite for Vishal Bhardwaj’s next, as-yet-untitled production to be directed by the filmmaker’s longtime associate Honey Trehan. The film will be co-produced by Prerna Arora and Arjun N Kapoor. Deepika will play mafia queen Rahima Khan popularly known as Sapna Didi while Irrfan will portray a local gangster who is in love with her and helps her in her mission to eliminate Dawood Ibrahim. The film is based on one of the chapters from former investigative journalist-turned-author S Hussain Zaidi’s book, Mafia Queens of Mumbai. Vishal had purchased rights to the chapter.

A source close to the development informs that Deepika loved the idea of playing one of the most feared female dons from the ’80s. “Sapna Didi had planned Dawood’s execution during a cricket match in Sharjah to avenge her husband’s death. Unfortunately for her, he got wind of her plans and killed her days before she could get to him. The film is expected to go on the floors by the year-end.”

Prerna, who has produced Rustom and Toilet-Ek Prem Katha, confirmed the news, saying, “Yes it is true that we are producing the film along with Vishalji, who is one of the finest directors in the country. We are looking forward to this collaboration.”

On Deepika and Irrfan, she said, “Yes, it is true that we are working together on this untitled venture.”

Vishal added, “Honey has been a part of my life since before I made my first film. Launching him as a director after Abhishek Chaubey gives me deep joy. He will make a fine director. Deepika has been asking me to write a script for her for a long time. She has heard this script and loved it. We are in an advance stage of discussion with her.”

Upala KBR (DNA; January 19, 2017)

The shooting of Apoorva Lakhia’s Haseena, starring Shraddha and her brother Siddhant Kapoor, has started in Mumbai. The actress, who roamed around Nagpada in a burqa to familiarise herself with the role of Dawood Ibrahim’s sister Haseena Parkar and the place where she lived, also met top city cops of that time and Dawood and Haseena’s schoolteacher and tailor.

As authentic as possible
Says a source, “Apoorva and Shraddha are sparing no effort to make sure that the film looks as authentic as possible. After visiting Nagpada a few times in a burqa, to get more information about Haseena’s mannerisms, she had a big meeting with the cops of that time, at one of the police clubs in South Mumbai. She met Haseena’s and Dawood’s school teacher who taught at the same madrasa in Nagpada. She has been having personal meetings with them at Apoorva’s home and meeting Haseena’s children, family, aunts and uncles.”

Getting it right
The shooting has started at Essel Studios and the actress is very nervous. Shraddha knows she has to get her research and body language correct because if she doesn’t she will get plenty of flak so she has taken it up as challenge. She is playing a mother of four children and her age will be shown with the help of prosthetic makeup. The costume designer has used the same materials from the same shops that Haseena used to buy her materials from.”

In a forthcoming autobiography, the actor opens up on the Don and depression
THE TIMES OF INDIA (January 15, 2017)

A veteran journalist on writing the autobiography of one of Bollywood’s most mercurial heroes
Meena Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 8, 2017)

In my 37-year-old association with the temperamental star, an ammusing moment while working on this autobiography stands out. Rishi Kapoor and I were taking our Q&A sessions at a coffee shop outside his Bandra home and as he ordered stir-fried veggies for me, he asked, utterly baffled, “How can anyone be vegetarian?” I laughed heartily, because this was quintessential Rishi Kapoor for you. Honest, brazen, unapologetic. “Honestly what do vegetarians eat? Ghaaspoos?”. He then joked that once a year, during Navarati, he did succumb to his herbivorous instincts and even that was a “hard and boring period for him”.

Many of my colleagues wondered if I had, out of some subconscious masochism, willingly walked into the lion’s den by choosing to work with one of Bollywood’s most eccentric stars. To be honest, I had done exactly that in the mid-80s, so his fits and rages were like old hat to me. I was then working with Star & Style and our columnist, the feisty Devyani Chaubal, had written a singularly nasty piece about him. He was livid. Since I was the greenhorn and the only unsuspecting one, my colleagues sent me to “break the ice” with Rishi Kapoor. And boy, oh boy, did I get a dressing down. I was quaking like a leaf when I returned to office; I was, suffice to say, altered. However, a week later, I was pleasantly surprised when he called me and gave me a no holds-barrred interview. Now, three decades later, here I was writing his life story.

Whether jovial or cranky, Rishi Kapoor’s hospitality never fails you. Food and beverages are served based on the hour of the day (or night). So if you’re there at 11 am, you are offered chaas, but if you’ve overstayed your welcome until 7.30pm, then it has to be Black Label. Some things never change in Bollywood, one might add. It also helps that Rishi Kapoor suffers from OCD and is meticulous about everything, down to his puja ritual, during which he will always light only naag champa agarbatis in front of the deity and listen to bhajans for the better part of the morning. On the other hand, a radio has to play continuously in his bathroom or bedroom, and his own repertoire of 350 odd songs, which dominate playlists even today, continue to exhilarate him. So it had become perfectly routine for me to be deep in conversation with the actor when he would suddenly jump up and go, “That’s my song!’’

Did I extract enough juice from a rather controversial innings in B-town? He was clear from the start that he didn’t want any ‘muck’. “If someone is looking for salacious details of my life, they will be disappointed,” he maintained all through. “I’m not about to give anyone vicarious pleasure by writing rubbish. But I will be as upfront as I can,” he said.

His 37-year-old marriage to Neetu Singh, for one, did have its share of fights, but about that he was not willing to get into. “When we got married, Neetu, who was at the peak of her career, quit to stay home. Before we tied the knot, we had decided that one of us would be the homemaker and the other would be the bread-winner. I was bowled over and I am totally indebted to Neetu for choosing to stay home, raise kids and hold the fort. And I was very sure, I would not give her any reason to complain.”

But then, just as I was about to give up, just when I thought that his very own claim that “this book is not to be a hagiography” was merely lip service, I was taken aback with his candour. Because when Rishi talks, he talks: he opened up about his father Raj Kapoor’s tempestuous life, his long silences with Neetu, his formal relationship with his superstar-son Ranbir, his tryst with Dawood Ibrahim, fisticuffs and fiery outbursts with colleagues back in the day. Over many cups of coffee and servings of stir-fried veggies, emerged a man who was funny, sad and honest — all at the same time. Contrary to his recently acquired brash and boisterous Twitter personality, Rishi Kapoor is as vulnerable and fragile as his porcelain-like visage from Bobby.

Speaking of Bobby, he spoke utterly honestly about being possessive about his first co-star, Dimple Kapadia, and how, despite that, they both overcame this to remain friends. He spoke of his shaky but steady relationship with Amitabh Bachchan. And most importantly, he also spoke about fighting clinical depression soon after his marriage. In a milieu where so much of our preoccupation with celebrity culture is about what goes on between a celebrity’s legs, working on this book taught me that it can indeed be refreshing to figure out what goes on between a celebrity’s ears for a change.

That dressing down from my Star & Style days finally seemed worth it, after all.

Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored
by Rishi Kapoor and Meena Iyer, published by Harper Collins, releases next week

Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; December 15, 2016)

Dawood Ibrahim is a dreaded name, one that evokes everything from anger to hatred. But, Bollywood has never stopped using him as a muse. Zakir Hussain is the latest to play the don in upcoming film, 'Coffee With D', that also marks the debut of stand-up comic Sunil Grover.

Incidentally, as part of prep for another film earlier, Zakir had read many of crime writer S Hussain Zaidi's books, especially Dongri to Dubai. "But, the best way to really know about Dawood is to go through archives and news stories. There is so much written about the man that it's enough to understand his behaviour and mannerisms," he said.

Was it a challenge for him, though? "Well, the real challenge was to recreate his look. There is a certain image of how the man looks and dresses. We have done our best to come close to it," he said, adding, "There is possibility that he dresses differently now. I can't tell you when the movie is set and what the backdrop is, but we wanted the man to look like the Dawood of the '90s."

This is the third time this year that Dawood has managed a screen reference in Bollywood. Last month, Farhan Akhtar shot for a special sequence for Arjun Rampal's film Daddy (based on gangster Arun Gawli) at Mehboob Studios. Farhan had earlier told us, "I had seen videos of how he looked, the way he dressed. It is a cameo, but a well-fleshed out one. The characters (Dawood and Arun Gawli) are shown to have a few meetings like they did in real life."

DAWOODS, UPCOMING AND IN THE RECENT PAST:

> Farhan Akhtar in Arjun Rampal's upcoming film, Daddy, based on gangster-turned-politician Arun Gawli

> Siddhanth Kapoor in Apoorva Lakhia's next, Haseena: The Queen of Mumbai, based on Dawood's sister, Haseena Parkar (played by Shraddha Kapoor).

> Rishi Kapoor as Iqbal Seth alias Goldman, a character modeled after Dawood, in D-Day (2013).

> Akshay Kumar as Shoaib Khan, loosely based on the don's life, in Once Upon A Time in Mumbai Dobaara (2013).

> Emraan Hashmi as a younger Dawood in the first part of Once Upon... in 2010.

Doctor saab turns journo

Sunil Grover, better known as Dr Mashoor Gulati on Kapil Sharma's show, will play a television journalist in 'Coffee With D'. His character, Arnab Ghosh, has been sketched out on the lines of journo Arnab Goswami. Grover, however, maintains, "Arnab Goswami is an entertaining journalist, but I am not trying to imitate him. It's the director's call to name the character. "Subconsciously, I might have picked up a few things of Arnab, but it's a fictional film."