Mumbai attacks second only to 9/11 in spawning stream of documentation.
US film-makers and publishers are pushing a number of 26/11 related books and films into the market. They are depicting different aspects of those harrowing 60 hours when 10 Pakistani gunmen held Mumbai under siege. The event is likely to become second only to America’s 9/11 in spawning an endless stream of books, documentaries and films.
Terror in Mumbai produced by HBO with Channel 4 will premiere in America on November 19, a week before the anniversary of the incident. The documentary is made by award-winning director Dan Reed and narrated by Newsweek international editor the Mumbai-born Fareed Zakaria. It features exclusive intercepted audio tapes of the cell phone calls between the gunmen and their controllers in Pakistan.
Another chilling US film, Secrets of the Dead: Mumbai Massacre, recreates first-hand survivor accounts. It sucks viewers into the maelstrom where they become witnesses to the split-second decisions that meant the difference between life and death.
“This film offers an unprecedented, inside view into the attacks,” says Jared Lipworth, executive producer of Secrets of the Dead. “It not only reveals how the victims and terrorists acted during the massacre, it highlights how consumer technologies and social media gave the victims a chance to survive, while also putting them directly into the line-of-fire of the terrorists who were hunting them down.”
Mumbai Massacre tells the stories about a Muslim architect and his wife who were forced to watch as two groups of hostages were executed at their feet; a tourist whose husband died in her arms as they were shot trying to escape; an American cameraman whose mother in Texas texted him a map of the hotel; and a married couple who split up during the chaos to increase the likelihood that at least one of them would survive to take care of their children.
New Yorkers Waris Ahluwalia, Tina Bhojwani and Mortimer Singer have also created a luxurious book, To India With Love: From New York to Mumbai. The book, priced at $49.95, is an ode to Mumbai and has Hollywood celebrities and New York fashion designers sharing their personal stories, photos and love for India. Designers Kenneth Cole, Jean Touitou, Rachel Roy, Yves Carcelle, Diane von Furstenberg, Evelyn Lauder, Silvia Fendi and Matthew Williamson have contributed artwork, pictures and text to the elegantly illustrated book to be released by Assouline next month.
The book sales will go to the Taj Public Service Welfare Trust to help victims of the 26/11 attacks. The book aims to encourage Americans to keep India on their tourist map. “People became fearful of travelling to terror-hit places. With the aim of reminding people about the country that India truly is, we reached out to notables in different fields to share their experiences of the country with us,” Tina Bhojwani, senior vice president of fashion house Theory LLC, told reporters.
The editors also roped in Hollywood actors Adrien Brody, Natalie Portman, Owen Wilson and director James Ivory as contributors. Indie auteur Wes Anderson who dedicated The Darjeeling Limited to Satyajit Ray reflects on his own film-making journey to India. Model and British royal India Hicks shares sepia-tinted pictures of her grandfather Lord Mountbatten in India.
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