Shootout at Wadala

Released in 2013, Shootout at Wadala marks Sanjay Gupta’s audacious and flamboyant return to the chiaroscuro world of stylized gangster cinema. Adapted from Hussain Zaidi’s seminal chronicle Dongri to Dubai, the film dramatizes—with Gupta’s characteristic blend of swagger and spectacle—the meteoric rise and inevitable downfall of Manya Surve, the infamous gangster whose demise in 1982 inaugurated Mumbai’s first officially recorded police encounter.

Gupta’s enterprise is, in essence, a volatile concoction—part historical reconstruction, part Bollywood bravura—where the gritty textures of crime reportage collide with the operatic excess of mainstream Hindi cinema. Set against the turbulent canvas of 1970s and early 1980s Bombay, the narrative traces the tragic transmogrification of Manohar Arjun Surve (John Abraham)—a bright, idealistic college student—into the dread figure of “Manya Surve,” the self-made don who sought legitimacy in infamy.

Wrongly implicated in a murder alongside his stepbrother Bhargav, Manya endures the brutal crucible of prison life, where innocence is stripped away and survival assumes a Darwinian ferocity. Emerging from incarceration hardened yet oddly principled, he resolves to carve an empire on his own terms—one unshadowed by the pre-existing power structures of the underworld. Teaming up with Sheikh Munir (Tusshar Kapoor), he begins asserting dominion over the city’s underbelly, inviting inevitable confrontation with the Haskar brothers—Zubair (Manoj Bajpayee) and Dilawar (Sonu Sood)—thinly veiled avatars of the Dawood-era dons. Meanwhile, ACP Isaque Bagwan (Anil Kapoor) and his lieutenants, notably Inspector Afaaque Baaghran (Ronit Roy), watch this gangland conflagration with wary detachment, poised between law and expediency.

The film’s crescendo arrives with the infamous 1982 Wadala encounter—a tableau of bullets and betrayal that Gupta frames as both moral reckoning and political theatre.

John Abraham, alas, proves a weak vessel for the film’s tragic gravitas; his performance oscillates between physicality and posturing, seldom attaining emotional resonance. In stark contrast, Anil Kapoor is a revelation—his ACP Bagwan is a portrait in urbane cynicism and understated menace, suffused with the sardonic wit of a man long acquainted with the city’s moral decay. Manoj Bajpayee imbues Zubair Haskar with his customary nuance and restrained malevolence, while Kangna Ranaut, sepia-lit and soft-spoken, brings a fleeting grace to an otherwise testosterone-drenched narrative.

Gupta directs with his usual bravado—saturated hues, balletic gunfights, and a pulsating score that seems to throb with the city’s heartbeat. Though the film’s momentum falters in its middle act, his aesthetic flair and muscular dialogue keep the narrative alive, if not always profound. The recreation of 1970s Bombay—with its vintage cars, bell-bottomed gangsters, and simmering political subtext—adds a layer of nostalgic authenticity, even if the stylization occasionally threatens to eclipse substance.

The screenplay teeters precariously between crime chronicle and moral allegory. Gupta and his writers exercise generous artistic license, with fact often sacrificed at the altar of flourish. Yet, at its core, Shootout at Wadala offers a somber reflection on the alchemy of corruption—how a society that lionizes power and punishes integrity ends up creating its own monsters.

It is, ultimately, a tale of identity: of a man who once believed in the redemptive power of education, only to be reshaped by systemic injustice into an outlaw who demands respect through fear. The film, however, frequently succumbs to its own machismo, mistaking virility for virtue and swagger for significance. Gupta’s dialogue—pithy, punchy, and steeped in pulp—occasionally verges on parody (“Ek Manya Surve duson pe bhaari padta hai”), yet remains undeniably entertaining.

The moral compass of the narrative remains intriguingly uncertain. Are we to sympathize with Manya as a victim of circumstance, or revile him as an emblem of moral decay? Gupta offers no easy answers, and it is precisely this ambiguity that lends the film its curious magnetism.

The soundtrack oscillates between gritty atmospherics and unabashed item-number flamboyance—“Laila” (Sunny Leone) and “Babli Badmaash” (Priyanka Chopra) are energetic diversions that titillate more than they advance the story. Sameer Arya’s cinematography bathes the film in a glossy, kinetic sheen, while the production design conjures a Bombay poised between industrial grime and cinematic myth.

Shootout at Wadala is not a film of subtlety; it is a swaggering, neon-lit opera of bullets and bravado. Beneath its lurid surface, however, lies a compelling meditation on how ambition curdles into criminality, and how society’s machinery of injustice fashions its own nemeses. It may not possess the existential gravitas of Satya or the poetic fatalism of Parinda, but it remains a muscular, visceral entry in the annals of the Mumbai gangster genre—less a masterpiece than a spectacle, but one that refuses to be forgotten.

Turbaned Tornado

This book "Turbaned Tornado" is a biography of the famous Indian marathoner who ran a marathon at 100 years, Fauja Singh. The writer Kushwant Singh is not the same famous Indian journalist and writer of the same name. It is a nice narrative of the early life of Fauja Singh, how he travelled to London after the death of his loving wife and started running marathons at the age of 89 when most of us would rather be more comfortable walking with a stick!! Fauja is an indomitable spirit and his farmers' genes help him in becoming a rare sportsman and brand ambassador more famous than some sportspersons three or four generations younger than him. His timing of 5.20 hours at the age of 94 is the stuff made of legends. Fauja Singh is truly a great sportsman of India and reading his biography is very refreshing.  

14 Hours - an Insider's Account of the 26/11 Attack

“14 Hours – An Insider’s Account of the 26/11 Taj” by Ankur Chawla is not a magisterial chronicle of terrorism, nor a sweeping journalistic investigation into one of independent India’s darkest nights. Rather, it is a deeply personal, palpably authentic, and profoundly human testimony of a young man caught in the crosshairs of history. Chawla, then a fledgling operations management trainee at the fabled Taj Mahal Palace & Tower in Mumbai, found himself unwillingly transformed from apprentice hotelier into reluctant chronicler of catastrophe, as the barbarous 26/11 assault unfolded around him.

This slender volume—modest in length at under 200 pages—eschews the grandiose sweep of historical reportage for the immediacy of lived experience. Written in a candid, first-person voice, its prose is direct, conversational, and unencumbered by ornamentation. Yet therein lies its power: in the spare simplicity of its sentences, one hears the heartbeat of truth. Chawla does not posture as historian or analyst; he bears witness. He narrates the fear that chilled his spine, the chaos that engulfed the corridors, the agonisingly small yet fateful decisions, the moral dilemmas that gnawed at conscience, and the fragile tendrils of hope that kept him tethered to survival.

What elevates the account above mere reportage is its very humanity. Amidst the sulphurous pall of gunfire and the cacophony of panic, we glimpse acts of kindness, colleagues shepherding terrified guests, staff suppressing their own dread to serve others, and even flickers of humour—those little human gestures that defiantly proclaim life in the face of death. Chawla’s recollections are studded with sensory immediacy—the confusion of muffled explosions, the prickling awareness of mortality, the flickers of desperate prayer—rendering the narrative visceral and intimate. One feels less a reader than a confidant, ushered into his memory.

Structurally, the book alternates between external drama and internal reflection, juxtaposing the immediacy of the siege with Chawla’s private anxieties, flashbacks, and filial yearnings. The tempo, too, mirrors reality: leisurely contextual beginnings soon give way to breathless urgency as the carnage commences, only to be punctuated by moments of quiet tenderness—comforting a guest, worrying for family, recalling a mother’s embrace—that deepen the pathos of the horror.

Undeniably, the prose betrays the unvarnished hand of a first-time author; there are occasional unevennesses in pacing, a lack of stylistic polish, and the scope remains circumscribed. Yet to dwell on these is to miss the point. For this is not literature aspiring to grandeur, but testimony aspiring to truth. Its worth lies precisely in its immediacy, in its sincerity, and in its refusal to allow the enormity of national tragedy to obscure the personal, beating heart of individual experience.

If one approached the book expecting a sweeping, cinematic saga of “the greatest attack on Indian soil since Independence,” one might well find oneself somewhat underwhelmed. And yet, one cannot but admire Chawla’s fortitude—both as a young hotelier who kept his composure amidst infernal chaos, and as a novice writer who summoned the courage to set down his ordeal in words. His intermittent sallies into humour, too, strike a disarmingly effective note, reminding us that even amidst conflagration, the human spirit seeks relief in laughter.

In sum, “14 Hours” is not a definitive history, but a brave and heartfelt memoir—an unpretentious act of remembrance and tribute. It is flawed, yes, but also earnest, evocative, and indelibly human. And perhaps that, in the end, is its greatest virtue. Goodreads 4/5

Picture taken from the internet not with an intention to violation of copyright. 

Business Responsibility Reports

SEBI is blindly following the SEC model for reporting and disclosures by corporates in India. Apparently they have mandated Business Responsibility Reports by top 100 companies as per market capitalization. These companies have to give BRRs if their financial years closes after 31st December 2012, which means practically all companies in the 2012-13 financial year bracket. There is a format for the BRRs and recently they have released FAQs on the subject. The earlier circular of august 2012 wherein SEBI introduced the concept of BRRs is available at this link here and the recent faqs is available here

The format is an inclusive format and I am sure many companies would give more information than is mandated and it is more in the nature of a check box kind of report. Some of the information asked for could very well be confidential information so it remains to be seen how corporates deal with it.

Some of the principles enunciated are very vague for eg. Principle 4 talks about disadvantaged, marginalised & vulnerable stakeholders. Really who are these kind of stake holders. There needs to be clarity in this regard. I feel they have blindly copied from somewhere without ascertaining whether these apply to the Indian market.

Annexure 2 of the August 2012 circular is critical as it enumerates the broad based principles on which the BRR is based. These are very ideal principles which if adopted truly by the corporates will lead to very little litigation and cause for concern. But unfair competion, disparaging advertisement, squatting on domain names, human rights and child rights abuses, trampling of employee rights are more the norm rather than the exception.

These principles should be adopted by all corporates in India and not only companies but all persons doing businesses in all forms whether as companies, or partnerships or LLPs etc.