Booked Report

Landmark,in association with Roli Books,recently launched the book ‘Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia’ written by Hussain Zaidi,a veteran journalist of investigative,crime and terror reporting based in Mumbai. The book was launched by Sanjay Gupta,director of the upcoming Bollywood film ‘Shootout at Wadala’,which is incidentally based on the book. The book attempts to chronicle the history of the Mumbai mafia while following the story of a young man who went astray despite having a father in the police force. The story is about how Dawood Ibrahim,a boy from the suburbs of Dongri,became a don in Dubai. “This book has taken 15 years of hard work and research and the appreciation that it has received has made the effort worth it,” said Zaidi at the book launch. The book is the first-ever effort to document the history of the Mumbai mafia,including the story of notorious gangsters like Haji Mastan,Karim Lala,Varadarajan Mudaliar,Chhota Rajan,and Abu Salem,but above all,it’s the story of how Dawood Ibrahim was initiated into crime as a pawn in the hands of the Mumbai Police and went on to wipe out competition and eventually became the Mumbai police’s own nemesis. Capturing his bravado,cunning,focus,ambition and lust for power in a gripping narrative,the meticulously researched book provides an in-depth and comprehensive account of the mafia’s games of supremacy and deadly warfare. Sanjay Gupta added,“There is no detail in this book that can be challenged and owing to such accurate portrayal of facts,it serves as the right inspiration for my next movie.”