Bombay on the Silver Screen Trivia Quiz

Answer: 1992-93 Bombay riots

The 1992-93 riots were a dark period in Bombay's (renamed Mumbai in 1995) otherwise secular history. When the Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya on the 6th of December, 1992 by Hindu kar-sevaks (religious volunteers), tensions were high between the Hindu and Muslim communities throughout the country. This led to riots in the city of Bombay during December 1992-January 1993 where the Muslim community was largely at the receiving end.

Mani Ratnam's "Bombay" was originally made in Tamil and then dubbed into Hindi and other languages. It followed an interfaith couple played by Arvind Swamy and Manisha Koirala caught in the midst of the riots. Despite winning critical and commercial acclaim both at home and abroad, it was banned in Singapore and Malaysia for its controversial theme.

Answer: Urmila Matondkar

Urmila Matondkar made her first big screen appearance as a child artiste in the Marathi film "Zaakol" in 1980. It was her performance as one of the three children in the Hindi film "Masoom" in 1983 which propelled her into the limelight.

"Rangeela" was written, directed and produced by Ram Gopal Verma. Mili (Urmila) is a background dancer in the movies who always dreams of some day getting the coveted lead role. When the film's lead actor, Raj Kamal, played by Jackie Shroff, notices her dancing while training on the beach, he recommends her for the heroine's part. This leads to a love triangle between Raj, Mili, and Mili's childhood best friend, Munna (Aamir Khan), who sells movie tickets on the black market and finds himself out of his depth in Mili's new world.

Answer: Maqbool

"Maqbool" was the first in Vishal Bhardwaj's Shakespeare trilogy. Based on "Macbeth", the story was adapted and set in the milieu of Mumbai's underworld, as the mafia in Mumbai in 1980s-90s were known. Maqbool (Irfan Khan) was the trusted lieutenant of Abbaji (Pankaj Kapur), a dreaded underworld don. Goaded by Abbaji's mistress, Nimmi (Tabu), Maqbool ends up killing his mentor and taking over his position.

The roles of the three witches were taken over by two corrupt Mumbai policemen played by industry veterans, Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah.

Answer: The Thackerays

Bal Thackeray, the patriarch of the Thackerays, founded the political party called the Shiv Sena (literally Shivaji's army) in Mumbai in the 1960s. An extreme right wing party, it sought to create a base among the Maharashtrians as original inhabitants of Mumbai, who were losing their jobs to outsiders - at various times this was South Indians, Gujratis, Biharis and other North Indians. It also staunchly catered to the Hindu majority, advocating keeping the Muslim community 'in check'.

Drawing inspiration from "The Godfather" trilogy, the three "Sarkar Raj" films fictionalized the political and personal lives of the Thackerays, albeit in a more complimentary manner with Sarkar, the character based on Bal Thackeray, being played by the doyen of Hindi cinema, Amitabh Bachchan.

Answer: Yes

"Talaash" starred Aamir Khan as Senior Police Inspector Surjan Singh Shekhawat. When a popular actor, Armaan Kapoor, dies by accidentally driving his car over the city's promenade and into the sea, Shekhawat and his team try to figure out whether it was a suicide or a murder, since there was nothing on the road to cause Kapoor to swerve into the sea. Along the way, Shekhawat is helped by a prostitute, Rosie, who also tells him of one of her fellow escorts who went missing years ago after being called one evening to accompany a party of men, among whom was Armaan Kapoor. Shekhawat's investigation finally leads him to find out that the escort who went missing was Rosie herself and had been left to die after the boys had met with an accident. She had returned to avenge herself and it was her ghost that Kapoor saw standing in the middle of the road that caused him to lose control of his vehicle.

As the film was promoted as a straightforward crime thriller, the supernatural twist came as a surprise to viewers.

Answer: Karishma Kapoor

The plot of "Fiza" develops during the 1992-93 Bombay riots. Amaan, Fiza's brother, disappears during the riots when the Hindus clashed against Muslims. Six years after his disappearance, Fiza sets out to find him and eventually succeeds. However, Amaan had been taken in by a terrorist group and having seen his community victimized during the riots, was brainwashed into taking revenge. Though Fiza brings him back to their house, he is unable to detach himself from his new found doctrines. The film ends with Amaan assassinating two politicians and then Fiza killing him in an act of mercy, to prevent him from being arrested and brought to trial.

Fiza was played by Karishma Kapoor while Hrithik Roshan played her brother, Amaan.

Answer: Dabbawalas

The "dabbawalas" or tiffin carriers run a system of collecting and delivering homemade lunches to office goers throughout the city of Mumbai. The lunchboxes or tiffins are picked up from the house and then delivered at the office using the network of dabbawalas. They then collect the empty lunchboxes and deliver them back to the house. Using their internal codes, different combinations of numbers, letters, and colours, the dabbawalas are able to maintain a high degree of accuracy despite the number of deliveries made, and the number of times a tiffin changes hands till it reaches its final destination. Their management skills have won them fans ranging from Prince Charles to Richard Branson of Virgin.

In "The Lunchbox" the famed dabbawalas make one of their rare mistakes by delivering the tiffin to the wrong person. Food sent by a housewife, Ila, to her husband mistakenly gets delivered to Saajan, a widower on the threshold of retirement. Soon begins an unlikely friendship through the exchange of notes via the lunchbox.

Answer: Truth

"Satya" (meaning truth) was directed by Ram Gopal Verma. Anurag Kashyap and Saurabh Shukla shared writing credits for the script. The eponymous protagonist Satya is an immigrant to Mumbai and gets drawn into the web of the underworld.

"Satya's" success made films on the underworld the flavour of the season and a rash of similar movies followed suit, none of them attaining even half the success or acclaim.

Mumbai's organized crime network, commonly called the underworld, had a strong presence in the city from the 1940s, reaching a peak in the 1980s-90s. From politicians and businessmen to the film industry, none of the rich people of the city were spared from extortion and other threats. Verma himself got the idea for a film on the underworld after hearing about the killing of an influential Bollywood music baron, Gulshan Kumar, by a gang. The underworld was only brought under control towards the end of the 1990s when the Mumbai Police began a series of encounters - extrajudicial killings of gang leaders, rather than trying to arrest them and follow the due process of law. Under implicit approval of the authorities, a number of senior police officers came to be known as 'encounter specialists' for the number of gang leaders killed, ostensibly as acts of self-defense. Ultimately, these tactics, stronger laws, and the opening up of the economy led to the decline of the underworld by the mid-2000s.

Answer: Yes

"Rustom" was set in the 1950s. A naval officer, Rustom (Akshay Kumar), kills his wife's lover in cold blood and then surrenders himself to the police. The rest of the film is set in the court room where Rustom is on trial.

The film was based on the real life case of naval officer K M Nanavati. Like the movie, Nanavati found out his wife was having an affair with a businessman, Prem Ahuja, and shot him with his service revolver before surrendering himself. The case shocked India, especially given that the people involved were from the upper echelons of society - a naval officer, his English wife and a prominent businessman. The Parsi community rallied behind Nanavati while the equally powerful Sindhi community gathered support for Ahuja. The jury acquitted Nanavati despite his own confession. Some attributing the jury's decision to Nanavati's charisma, others to the strict moral code which held Ahuja as the bad guy for seducing the wife of a naval officer. Nanavati was then retried by a bench and found guilty, only to be pardoned by the Governor of Bombay a few years later. He served three years in prison. After his release, Nanavati and his wife Sylvia migrated to Canada with their children where they lived till his death. This was one of the last jury trials in India before the system was abolished in favour of trial by bench.

Answer: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Based on the novel "Q&A" by Vikas Swarup, "Slumdog Millionaire" was the story of how Jamal Malik, a young boy from the slums of Mumbai, won the jackpot on the television show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?". In a series of improbable coincides, Jamal was able to answer every question based on various incidents from his own life.

Directed by Danny Boyle, the film won eight Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director. While I did find the film entertaining, it was far from Oscar worthy, in my opinion. If it had to have been made by an Indian director, it would have been panned for packing every possible stereotype and cliche into its two hour running time.

AR Rahman won two Oscars for his soundtrack - Best Original Score and Best Original Song. Though Rahman deserves all the accolades that come his way, this was far from his best work. His musical genius is better appreciated by listening to his works for the Tamil film industry, especially some of his songs for Mani Ratnam's movies.