No, Bambai Meri Jaan is not directly based on a true story. Bambai Meri Jaan is a 2023 Indian Hindi-language crime thriller Amazon Prime Video series produced under the banner of Excel Entertainment. The series has been created by Rensil D’ Silva and Shujaat Saudagar and stars Kay Kay Menon, Avinash Tiwari, Kritika Kamra, Nivedita Bhattacharya and Amyra Dastur.
Bambi Meri Jaan is adapted from the book Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia, authored by the veteran crime reporter, S. Hussain Zaidi. The movie draws heavy inspiration from the history of Mumbai underworld and organised crime, chronicled in the book. However, the characters, story and specific incidents have been dramatised and fictionalised.
Plot Summary
Bambai Meri Jaan is set in Mumbai from the 1960s to 1980s. The story centres on the Kadri family and narrated through the perspective of Ismail Kadri, an honest and principled police officer who is determined to free Mumbai from the menace of organised crime. As smuggling, murders and gang wars grip Mumbai, Ismail Kadri battles underworld figures like Abdul Pathan and Haji Maqbool.
Ismail Kadri’s son Dara Kadri gets involved with the underworld. The series explores the relationship between an idealistic Ismail Kadri and his criminal son Dara who gets deeper into the mafia, indulges in brutal gang wars and builds his own crime syndicate. Themes of family loyalty, ambition, betrayal and the blurred line between good and evil drive the narrative.
The series culminates with Dara becoming a dominant gangster, eliminating his rivals in the underworld, expanding operations to Dubai and ultimately fleeing India. His relationship with his father Ismail is permanently destroyed, with tragic consequences for the latter.
Parallels With Dawood Ibrahim
Many film critics have noted that the character of Dara is clearly modeled on Dawood Ibrahim, an infamous gangster who rose from the Mumbai mafia to become an international criminal and India’s most wanted fugitive. The plot mirrors the life journey of Dawood Ibrahim: Son of a policeman who enters the Mumbai underworld, eventually becoming the most dominant crime boss and fleeing to Dubai.
However, the creators of the series, including director Shujeet Saudagar and producers Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani, have stated in interviews that the show is a work of fiction and not a biopic of Dawood Ibrahim or any specific person.