Did underworld don Dawood actually call makers of Coffee With D?

There is a scene in Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya (1998) where a Bollywood music composer, Romu Saagar (Neeraj Vohra) steps down from his high horse and not only tracks down Vidya (Urmila Matondkar), a struggling singer he has brushed off without second thought but also offers her a plum singing assignment.

Of course, Vidya has no clue that her strong silent neighbour whom she likes, Satya (JD Chakravarthy), is the right-hand man of the underworld kingpin Bhiku Mhatre (Manoj Bajpayee) and he had threatened the music director to do what he did.

This scene from the crime classic is one of the many in the film that is inspired by real life and rather than sending a chill down the viewer’s spine, it has left them in splits.

Perhaps, it was the rotund Vohra who evoked laughter, or perhaps the incident had become so commonplace that laughing it away seemed like the best thing to do.

If you thought this was "so" 1998 think again. The makers of an upcoming film, Coffee With D that features well-known comic Sunil Grover as a journalist who tries to interview underworld don Dawood Ibrahim have apparently been receiving threat calls from the bhai brigade.

It is said that they have gently asked them to make a few changes in the film as it depicts Ibrahim in a bad light.

Directed by Vishal Mishra and produced by Vinod Ramani, Coffee With D has Zakir Hussain portraying Ibrahim and the trailer pitches the film as a dark comedy where facts and urban legends collide to come up with a fantasy.

Imagine the world’s most wanted fugitives face-to-face with a rock star journalist seemingly modelled on Arnab Goswami. Grover’s character is called Arnab as well but unlike the celebrated TV host, who rarely gives in, Grover has refused to promote the film ever since the news of the threats became public.

The manner in which the whole incident has panned out is also like the old times.

Grover has denied that a man posing to be Chota Shakeel, Dawood’s right-hand man, ever called him and even tweeted that this was all fake news.

The producer and director, on the other hand, have lodged a complaint with the Delhi police. Films and organised crime go back a long way.

In fact, this is one of the things that both Bollywood and Hollywood have in common.

Traditionally, the lure of easy money may have attracted society’s nefarious elements to the film world, but in India, it is more than that. This is a place where only cricketers, politicians and film stars are treated like demigods and the underworld simply cannot resist the lure.

If, in Hollywood, it was about control or money, here it was about being the one to whom the so-called gods pay obeisance to.

It is rumoured that the scenes in The Godfather, in which Johnny Fontaine is helped by the mafia in his career, were based on Frank Sinatra. Studio boss Harry Cohn did not want Sinatra in From Here to Eternity and thought of him as a bum but was “advised” to change his mind after a visit from Johnny Rossellini, the mobster boss who was nicknamed “The Henry Kissinger of the Mob”.

Here in India tales of some of the most successful actors going to Haji Mastan in the '60s and '70s are folklore and one of them stands out. A small time producer had robbed the girlfriend of famous screenwriter of her life’s savings and the writer asked her to call on one of the leading superstars to help her.

The star heard her and once she was done all he did was scribble something in Urdu on a piece of paper and asked her to give it to Mastan. She followed the instructions to the letter and the next day, the producer not only returned the entire sum, but also knew refusal would have meant a bullet.

The manner in which the underworld likes to be seen with the stars, some actors, too, liked the idea of being connected with the former in a special kind of way. What makes it worse is the manner in which it is made to look, almost like a way of life.

Earlier it used to be about actors making appearances at events for people who were connected with organised crime in some way, then it became camaraderie, followed by partnership where some actors worked for less than market price as a favour, then it came to investment for projects and before you knew it, it was just another format of business.

This is a trade where a music mogul is killed in broad daylight, or a producer shot at for hafta or protection money, and when that same horrific scene is repeated on film, it makes people laugh.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Trends and themes may change with the passage of time, but if there is one thing that continues to be the same it is the manner in which the underworld simply gets its way.

Of course, the entire Coffee With D threat calls business could also turn out to be a publicity stunt and if it does, one can surely acknowledge the business of funny money.