Quotes of the Day

The villain in Bombay Dreams, the tinsel-and-tabla musical currently wowing London's West End, is J.R., The Big Boss, a gangster who controls the film industry and whose menacing mantra is: "I'll be watching. I always am."

Abu Salem is a real-life gang lord who has kept similarly close tabs on Bollywood, even as he has amassed one of the longest rap sheets in Indian crime. The don named his sons after his favorite onscreen heroes, and even married a Bombay starlet, Monica Bedi. This summer, Indian reporters say he called to announce that he had helped finance Devdas, the most expensive film in Indian history and among this year's biggest hits.

That may be Abu Salem's last connection with Bollywood films for a while—aside from watching them on prison TV. On Sept. 18 Interpol arrested Abu Salem in Lisbon, and earlier this month a New Delhi court issued a non-bailable warrant charging him with running a crime syndicate. Oh, and the U.S. government wants to chat with him about his possible link to al-Qaeda.

The Abu Salem saga is just one of the dramatic stories playing out in the press and on websites. Also in the news is Chota Shakeel, Bombay's current boss of bosses, whom the local police claim they have on 71 tapes of bugged calls. Among Shakeel's alleged phone buddies are actors, directors and producers. The tapes still must have their authenticity established, yet they add credence to the popular theory that in India, which makes more films per year than any other nation, the Mob controls most of the movie business.

The top star on Shakeel's speed-dial list is Sanjay Dutt, son of actor-politician Sunil Dutt and the luminous Nargis (the two starred in 1957's Mother India, the Hindi Gone With the Wind). Bollywood's alltime bad boy, Sanjay has a past littered with drugs, a love of guns and implication in a series of bomb blasts in Bombay in 1993. His alleged taped conversation with Shakeel sounds innocuous; it would put anyone but a government eavesdropper to sleep. Dutt asks about a promised mobile phone connection (which he could well afford on his own). He complains about the chronic tardiness of fellow star Govinda, who appeared with Dutt—and Bedi—in the 2001 film Jodi No. 1. The tape is pure verbal gargle, but dicey for Dutt: Shakeel is a wanted criminal who had been sheltered by India's archenemy, Pakistan.

Or consider the plight of Bharat Shah, the producer who corralled megastars Shahrukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit for Devdas. Shah has more troubles than a screenwriter could dream up. First, the police claim he was one of Shakeel's long-distance phone chums. Then rival don Abu Salem boasted of his investment in Devdas. Shah was arrested in January 2001, accused of being a front man for the Mob, and was jailed for months before getting bail. Now he's caught between two sets of gangsters. That raises, as they say, loyalty issues; it's like playing the Bosnians against the Serbs. Either group could kill Shah for being a traitor.

Shah and Dutt are not alone; nearly every Indian moviemaker or shaker has schmoozed with the Mob at some point. "They get the calls and over a period of time they are seduced," says Shridhar Vagal, who heads the Bombay police's crime department. "Before they know it, they have accepted some help and then they go on making incremental compromises." According to Mahesh Bhatt, writer-producer of this year's hit thriller Raaz: "Some people may have embarrassing connections with the underworld, but most film people are just victims." Apparently, victims of a sustained assault by the underworld. Victims who could end up dead.

In 1997, director Mukesh Duggal was shot and killed in Bombay and producer Manmohan Shetty barely survived a murder attempt. In 2000, director Rakesh Roshan (Kaho Naa...Pyaar Hai), whose son Hrithik is the current heartthrob, survived a murder attempt after refusing to procure Hrithik's services for a Mob-backed film. Last year the onslaught started. Gangsters killed the secretary of Manisha Koirala, a top actress and niece of the former prime minister of Nepal. Hrithik, Govinda, veteran actor Amrish Puri and top director Karan Johar (Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham) were assigned armed police protection after receiving death threats. And earlier this year the Mob plotted to kill actor-superstar Aamir Khan and director Ashutosh Gowariker when they rejected gangland overtures after the huge success of their Oscar-nominated Lagaan.

It's not just stars who are at risk, of course. In Bombay, in any stratum, survival often means keeping up with transient gangster bosses. Local toughs enslave the poor, taking a cut on everything from beggars to brothels. The thugs owe their power to their bosses, who call themselves Bhai, or brother, and live abroad in Pakistan, Dubai, Kenya, New Jersey—far beyond the reach of Indian police. From these lavish lairs the mobsters run their empires—and, if the Shakeel tapes are to be believed, they run up hefty bills with cell-phone calls to Bollywood royalty. Few stars can escape the nagging apprehension that one day the phone will ring and a voice will say, "This is Bhai."

Thirty years ago, the Mob's ties with Bollywood were mostly social. Gangsters—who, like most Indians, are film fans—would invite performers to cricket matches and lavish parties in Dubai. Stars love star treatment, and the bhais enjoyed flaunting their access to them.

Gradually, things changed. One crime lord took an avuncular interest in a young actress and began producing films with her in the lead. Soon the bhais were financing films, choosing actors, demanding distribution rights—mixing business with pleasure. But the relationship was often as symbiotic as it was predatory, because until last year, most banks would not finance Indian films. The money had to come from somewhere, even if the loan carried 50% interest—and the collateral was your knees.

At times, a threat concealed a promise. In 1997, Shakeel asked an obscure producer named Nazim Rizvi to shelve a film because it might heighten Hindu-Muslim tensions. "I have told him to make proper films and assured him that his costs will be taken care of," Shakeel told time, adding, "If the director doesn't abide by my decision, I'll just have to kill him." Rizvi obliged. Three years later, Rizvi made the lavish Chori Chori Chupke Chupke with a brilliant cast that was not only expensive but booked for other films years in advance. Shakeel had come through. (The police arrested Rizvi in December 2000 after they intercepted his phone conversations with the mobster.)

Gangsters may have been useful in bringing some order to the lawless world of Indian cinema—a huge industry run like a street stall, where no contract is signed and a promise is easily broken. But the bhais don't do favors. They extort money, run their own banks like Shylocks, and demand international distribution rights to potential hit films.

What about the police? The courts? Koirala tried that. She brought a suit against a director who had used a double for a nude scene in her film Ek Chhoti Si Love Story. Last month, she lost the case. So she sought help from another powerful gang in Bombay: the Hindu chauvinist Shiv Sena political party. Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray considers himself the protector of Hindu culture, even as his boys, like the bhais, win adherents by force. When Love Story was released, Shiv Sena activists attacked the theaters, ripped up billboards and threatened owners to stop screenings of the film. In Bombay, the Mob isn't the only mob in town.

Both Chota Shakeel and Abu Salem could end up in Indian jails. But the bhais won't ease their grip on Bollywood. They'll keep watching. They always do.

• RICHARD CORLISS
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