Five greatest books about Mumbai's underworld

When The Guardian asked Jeet Thayil as to why he named his first novel as Narcopolis, he had an answer which can be described as apt in the very least: "Bombay seemed to me a city of intoxication, where the substances on offer were drugs and alcohol, of course, but also god, glamour, power, money and sex".

All these virtues — and vices — have ensured that more books, both fiction and non fiction, have been written about Mumbai than any other city in India, and probably in the world as well.

The city has been blessed with the foremost investigative journalists of our times, who have taken to writing extensive novels, especially in non-fiction. S.Hussain Zaidi, Meenal Baghel, and the late Jyotirmoy Dey are just one of the many. Thus, here we list out five of the greatest accounts of crime in the form of books, that are mainly based in Mumbai, a city where crime is a 9 to 5 job like any other.

1. Black Friday (Penguin, 2001) by S Hussain Zaidi

Some book-reviewing websites refer to this book as the best account of crime in Mumbai till date. Zaidi uses all his resources, contacts, experiences and some creative liberty to reconstruct the catastrophe that was the 1993 serial blasts which took place on March 12th, Friday and the subsequent investigations led by current Mumbai police commissioner Rakesh Maria. It was a page-turner without an iota of doubt and shot Zaidi to fame. The book was later adapted by Anurag Kashyap into an eponymous film, considered by many to be one of Kashyap's best and the most controversial film till date. Some of the accused in the blasts case filed a petition to stall the release of the film, which was accepted by the courts, because, as the judge observed, a film based on such a well-researched book might affect the proceedings of the case. The film was eventually released three years laterin 2004.

2. Narcopolis (Faber, 2012) by Jeet Thayil

Jeet Thayil was known to belong to a literary clique of short story and poetry collections. Come 2012, he released his first novel, Narcopolis, about a newcomer to Mumbai being sucked into the dark and hallucinating underbelly of opium and and hashish and the numerous people he meets who occupy the world in the dark alleys of Kamathipura and in the dingy lanes and cemeteries behind the glitz of Bandra. The rest, to quote a cliche, became history. He was among the elite club of five to be nominated for the Man Booker in 2012, won the Hindu Prize for that year. The year culminated with him winning the very prestigious DSC South Asian Literature Prize for 2012.

3. Mafia Queens of Mumbai (Westland Tranquebar Press, 2011) by S Hussain Zaidi and Jane Borges

When anyone is asked to name the lords of crime and the underworld in Mumbai, Dawood Ibrahim, Karim Lala and Abu Salem are the names which will crop up inevitably. What about their women? How much of an influence do they have on their gangster-husbands? How much into the world of crime have they delved into at their own accord? Hussain Zaidi answers all these questions and much more in this compelling account about the women in the underworld. They include wives and molls of gangsters, madames of brothels, and just ambitious women keen to earn fame and notoriety. Like all Zaidi accounts, the book is researched to the hilt and compelling to the core, with extensive and shocking interviews, often with the women in question themselves.

4. Death in Mumbai (Random House, 2011) by Meenal Baghel

One of the foremost journalists from Mumbai in her own right, Meenal Baghel's account of one of the most gruesome and sensational murder cases ever to take place in India was easily the most comprehensive that one could lay their hands on. The book speaks of the gruesome murder of Neeraj Grover, a television executive who created Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain?, which was hosted by Shahrukh Khan. As the case proceeded, police and the media were left flabbergasted with the revelations. As it turned out, it was a love triangle which went terribly wrong. One Emile Jerome Mathew, a navy officer, was suspicious of his girlfriend, Bollywood starlet Maria Susairaj's relations with Grover. It culminated in Susairaj and Mathew killing Grover and chopping his body into some 300 pieces. In a shocking aside, Mathew and Susairaj reportedly engaged in amorous activities twice, right next to the mutilated body of Grover. The book is also an account on the darker unit of the glamour factory that is Mumbai's film and television industry. Ram Gopal Varma did make a film based on this book and this case at large- Not A Love Story- which tanked at the box office.

5. Dongri to Dubai (Roli, 2012) by S Hussain Zaidi

If there has ever been a chronicle of the Mumbai underworld till date, it has got to be Dongri to Dubai, Zaidi's highest selling book till date. The book tracks the rise — and sometimes the fall — of Mumbai's most respected and feared crime bosses. From the days of Haji Mastan, Varadarajan Mudaliar, and Karim Lala, to the days of the D-Company and the mafiosi that were created out of the 'proteges' of Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, ironically, the son of, a police constable. From their control of the film industry in the 90s to the furtive but ever-expanding empires that the gangsters still rule over from their jail cells or at safe-houses in Dubai and Karachi. Sanjay Gupta adapted the book into Shootout At Wadala, starring John Abraham as a character based on the up-and-coming Dawood Ibrahim in the 80s.