‘Bullets Over Bombay’: ‘Satya’ and the Hindi film gangster by Uday Bhatia
Mumbai crime lords and their crime lore, as captured in Hindi cinema
Published 27.10.21, 07:37 AM
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No one did Bolly gangster like Ram Gopal Verma. With his nuanced portrayal of the Mumbai underworld in Satya in 1998, Ram Gopal Verma forever changed how the rest of India viewed those dreaded crime lords. Now, film writer Uday Bhatia takes us on a walk down Mumbaiya lanes, revisiting this iconic film and plugging in anecdotes from its making.
Bullets Over Bombay also dwells on the socio-political setting of the 1990s that lead to the creation of the modern-day gangster that we so often see in films by Anurag Kashyap or Vishal Bhardwaj, among others. With quotes from the makers of Satya, Bhatia takes us back to the grit and grime of the streets of Maximum City that bred gangs and gangsters aplenty, while reminiscing the film traditions that led to Satya acquiring cult status. Published by HarperCollins India, this book is a study on cinema which makes it a great gift for anyone who loves Hindi films.
