Byculla to Bangkok

by S. Hussain Zaidi

After the huge success of Dongri to Dubai, here comes its much awaited sequel, Byculla to Bangkok. Chota Rajan, Arun Gawli and Ashwin Naik are among those whose lives Hussain Zaidi recounts with his characteristic flair for narrativizing the Mumbai underworld. Violence and deceit one expects to read of, but the strength of this book is also its ability to capture the mundane and almost naive beginnings of what later became organized crime and brutal vendettas which held Mumbai to ransom through the last decades of the twentieth century, Unputdownable.

Genres: Crime, Nonfiction, India, History, True Crime, Unfinished, Marathi

277 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

S. Hussain Zaidi is a prominent Indian author, journalist, and screenwriter celebrated for his invaluable contributions to the world of crime reporting, investigative journalism, and storytelling. Born on February 28, 1962, in Mumbai, India, Zaidi has left an indelible mark on the literary and cinematic landscapes of India, particularly in the realm of crime and the Mumbai underworld.

S. Hussain Zaidi embarked on his career as a crime reporter, where he honed his skills in uncovering hidden truths and delving into the intricacies of organized crime in Mumbai. His early experiences as a journalist provided him with a deep understanding of the criminal world and its dynamics.

Over the years, Zaidi transitioned from journalism to writing and screenwriting, bringing his unparalleled insights and storytelling prowess to a wider audience. His unique ability to humanize the characters in his narratives, whether they are criminals or law enforcement officers, sets his work apart.

"Black Friday: The True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts" - Zaidi's book "Black Friday" is a compelling account of the 1993 Bombay bombings. It presents a factual and thorough examination of the events leading up to the blasts and their aftermath.

"Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of the Mumbai Mafia" - This critically acclaimed book stands as one of Zaidi's most notable works. It meticulously traces the evolution of organized crime in Mumbai over six decades. The book offers a comprehensive and gripping account of the city's criminal history.

"Mafia Queens of Mumbai: Stories of Women from the Ganglands" - In this compelling book, Zaidi sheds light on the powerful and enigmatic women who played significant roles in Mumbai's underworld. He tells their stories with empathy and detail, providing a fresh perspective on the world of crime.

S. Hussain Zaidi's influential literary works have transcended the confines of the written word and made a powerful impact on the silver screen. Some noteworthy adaptations of his books include:

"Black Friday" (2007) - Directed by Anurag Kashyap.
"Shootout at Wadala" (2013) - Directed by Sanjay Gupta.
"Class of '83" (2020) - Directed by Atul Sabharwal.
"Gangubai Kathiawadi" (2022) - Directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, among many others.

In addition to his contributions to the film industry, S. Hussain Zaidi has harnessed his creative prowess in the realm of film and web series production. His noteworthy productions encompass projects like "Bard of Blood" and "Scoop" on Netflix, as well as the recent addition "Bambai Meri Jaan," available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

S. Hussain Zaidi has played a pivotal role in nurturing emerging literary talents within the authorship realm. Notably, individuals such as Bilal Siddique, Neeraj Kumar (Commissioner of Delhi Police), Kashif Mashaikh, and many more have found their path to success as authors under his guidance. This mentoring initiative is facilitated through "Blue Salt Media," an imprint in collaboration with Penguin India.

S. Hussain Zaidi's work, both in literature and cinema, continues to captivate audiences with its gritty realism, engaging storytelling, and insights into the complex world of crime and law enforcement in India. His contributions have not only enriched the true crime genre but have also served as a source of inspiration for aspiring writers, journalists, and filmmakers.

Reviews

[Vikas Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only book that chronicles the history of Mumbai's underworld in such graphic detail. While Zaidi's other book Dongri to Dubai tackled Dawood Ibrahim and his rise, this book is about Maharashtrian Mobsters -Chota Rajan, Gawli and Rama Naik . Brilliantly researched, this is a must read for any body interested in the history and growth of Mumbai's dark underbelly.

[Ashwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank god, Hussain Zaidi has improved leaps and bounds in his writing skills, unlike the prequel to this book Dongri to Dubai, which felt like it was recycling of newspaper articles. The Book traces the evolution of Maharashtarians into underworld, and how so of them have started their own political parties now. This brief,racy and concise book is must, if you have no idea about Mumbai mobsters. The recurring theme in the book is how crony capitalism and inability of police to provide justice lead many young educated honest people to other side of the crime.

[Athul · Rating 1 out of 5]

curse of the sequel.

[Srikanth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the so called sequel to the book "Dongri to Dubai" by the author Zaidi.

The book starts of with a racy encounter ending in the death of a dreaded mafia guy. This book talks about the home grown Maharashtrian gangs. The main characters are Arun Gawli, Chotta Rajan & Naik, including others of some importance. It also talks about various police & political characters who have played a key role in the decimation or growth of the mafia.

I had earlier reviewed "Dongri to Dubai" & would like to state that the writing style of the author is extremely readable and interesting.

The author with his background as a crime reporter has got all the juicy tit bits of information, including the killers eccentricities and beliefs. The best e.g. would be of Thakur, who was a vegetarian teetotaller. A firm bhakt of Lord Shiva and an honourable one at that!!!

There are multiple narratives and stories that are weaved seamlessly. This book is truly an unputdownable book. I finished it within 8 hrs flat.

What i liked about the book

A. It is extremely readable and doesnt bore the reader. Not one page is boring.

B. The amount of research that has gone into this book shows, when small and delightful details are added in between.

C. It gives us a big picture of the how and why of mafia growth.

D. This book is an important part of our history, that is presented in an extremely interesting manner.

What i did not like about the book

A. The bias in this book as well his earlier one towards Dawood is visible in a very subtle manner.

B. Importance has been given to the role of Shiv Sena and BJP, but Cong has been totally leftout with respect to its role in enabling the mafia. Especially the role of Sharad Pawar.

C. There were a lot of pages which read more like fiction that reality, this could have been avoided.

D. Last but most important, pictures of all characters should have been given. Some of the pics in the book are actually useless in the extreme. e.g. pics of a durga puja pandal!!!! Really Mr Zaidi

Key takeaways from this book

A. Economics was the main reason for the mafia to have sprung. I mean economics combined with lack of governance. If police would have acted in some cases and not acted in others, many people wouldn't have ended up where they were.

B. It is astonishing and completely unacceptable that a goon and a low life like Gawli could form a party and dream of becoming a politician after all his crimes. It is an abject failure of the system.

C. Our institutions are absolutely not people friendly nor do they operate with SLAs. If this can be changed, lot more crime can be prevented.

Last but not the least, however cool they sound in the movies or look awesome. These bastards should be treated as vermin and not some hot bodies hunks, Which bollywood has done in quite a number of ways. Best e.g. is of Manya surve in real life and Manya surve in reel life.



Coz when death stares them, they too whimper and cry like their innocent victims.

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Generally, I love all of Hussain Zaidi's books - this was no exception. Like his other books, it follows the lives of the gangsters of India (namely Maharashtra in this one). As always, I enjoyed the stories. However, I gave this a 3/5 because the skipping between stories became very frustrating and made it hard to retain interest. Also, the final 50 pages were rushed and very tedious to get through. Overall, it was what I expected.

[Abhisek Pandey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very poorly written and edited, so much so that it puts you off at almost every page. But the content, especially for people like me who don’t know the mumbai underworld in great details, makes it interesting and a quick read.

[Kanishka Sirdesai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting chronology of events leading to the decimation of the Mumbai underworld!

[Suda Raj · Rating 3 out of 5]

Adding the review as I read the book.

[Raj Shukla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing book!! It describes the Mumbai mafia in the most spectacular way. There are very stupefying incidences which depicts the ferocity of the crimes that were carried out decades ago. The book describes the long lasting war between goons and drug lords with Mumbai police. A must read for those who are willing to know more about the crime developments in Mumbai.

[Pooja Anand · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book because I had to. I am too much into crime reading and when it is Mumbai mafia, I had to pick this book (I am too much into fact finding of mumbai mafia). But I was really disappointed from the very first chapter. The first book in this series (Dongri to Dubai) released few years back. So what does the author expect us to do, read that book again before picking this one?

Goods about this book: No doubt well researched, have all the juices to keep the reader glued.

Bads about this book:

1) Looked like Dongri to Dubai had more flesh than this book.

2) Author's bias towards Dawood is quite visible. The chapters or stories in BTB seems incomplete rushed, where the stories or incidences in DTD seemed complete and linked to each other. But the smooth linking between the chapters seemed missing in BTB.

3) There seems to be very visible biasedness from Author towards Congress, and Shiv Sena & BJP. The author very smoothly highlighted the role of Shiv Sena and BJP in the flourishing of Mumbai Mafia, but he just simply forgot to mention anything, any single incidence of Congress's involvement in rising of the Mumbai Mafia especially the role of Sharad Pawar.

4) Photographs of main ganglords should have been given or some some important pictures. It seems the author just printed few of the pictures for the sake of it. I guess there was no need for a picture of bal thackrey or a pandal picture rather pictures of main accused, dons should have been printed, which could have helped the interested readers to connect more with the gangmen.

Quite disheartened seeing the biased attitude of the author.

[Hrishikesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely fun, captivating and nearly-impossible-to-put-down. Thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Make no mistake about it; although it has been researched in depth, it is not an academic work. But despite being a quentessential "masala" book, it also takes us back to the many security issues India faces.

[Rudranil Ghosh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Expected more out of this sequel to 'Dongri to Dubai' , but somehow it looks more like an assemblage of trivia and information. The flow and structure which the first book had was somewhat missing here. Nevertheless, a good read with interesting insights into the Mumbai underworld and how the Mumbai police tried to tackle it.

[Chandru]

sequel to the other mafia book, equally blood chilling. how does economics and money flow affect lives of normal folks turning them into the monsters who roam the world. good read!

[Asheesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall just in line with the First book, "Dongri to Dubai". I must say that author has done some good research in bringing some fine points of underworld to public.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads # True Crime #Indian Underworld and Terrorism

If *Dongri to Dubai* was the grand opera of Mumbai’s criminal empire, *Byculla to Bangkok* is its mournful, fractured sequel — less about conquest, more about the hangover that follows it. S. Hussain Zaidi returns to the streets that made him, tracing the next generation of underworld figures who inherited a broken empire after Dawood Ibrahim vanished into the shadows. This is the **aftermath story** — the years when Bombay was rebuilding itself from riots and blasts, when the mafia’s glamour was fading, and when the underworld was mutating into something colder, more fragmented, more corporate.

Zaidi writes as if he has been sitting in the smoke-filled rooms where these men once plotted. His voice carries that unshakeable authenticity — not the armchair crime enthusiast’s voyeurism, but the witness’s fatigue. The book’s geography itself — **Byculla to Bangkok** — maps a moral journey. It’s the route of flight, exile, betrayal. The Mumbai gangs are no longer rooted in their bastis or mohallas; they are global now, trafficking drugs, laundering money, and chasing relevance in a world that’s moved on from gang wars to cybercrime and terror networks.

But Zaidi doesn’t just catalogue events. He dissects the psychology of the new dons — **Chhota Rajan, Arun Gawli, Ashwin Naik, Amar Naik, and others** — men who were once Dawood’s peers or protégés, and who turned against him when the underworld split into rival factions. If *Dongri to Dubai* was mythic — the creation of a criminal demigod — *Byculla to Bangkok* is tragic realism. The tone is darker, leaner, almost elegiac. These are men who have tasted both power and fear, and Zaidi catches them in their twilight.

The narrative unfolds like a film directed by Scorsese but set in Grant Road — part *Goodfellas*, part *Satya*. Zaidi moves fluidly through timelines: the mill strikes of the 1980s, the political manipulations of the 1990s, the rise of the “encounter era” in Mumbai policing. He never lets the reader forget that these gangsters are products of their environment — born out of poverty, neglect, and systemic failure.

In one sense, *Byculla to Bangkok* is a **sociological autopsy of a city** that bred both Bollywood and the mafia with equal passion. Byculla, once the heart of working-class Mumbai, becomes a metaphor for disillusionment — a place where dreams rot into desperation. And Bangkok, the glamorous escape route, becomes the symbol of flight — the illusion of freedom that every don eventually learns is another kind of prison.

Zaidi’s eye for detail is razor-sharp. He gives you textures — the colour of the gangsters’ shirts, the taste of the Irani chai they drink, the sound of police sirens after a botched hit. However, his greatest strength lies in **his empathy**. He doesn’t romanticize these men, but he doesn’t dehumanize them either. Each one is a study in contradictions — killers who loved their mothers, criminals who donated to temples, men who built schools even as they extorted from builders.

Compared to *Black Friday*, *Byculla to Bangkok* feels more personal, less institutional. *Black Friday* was about systems — the machinery of terror, the politics of revenge. *Byculla to Bangkok* is about individuals — their choices, loyalties, and inevitable downfall. Zaidi isn’t describing a single event here; he’s chronicling an era’s emotional decay.

When you place *Byculla to Bangkok* alongside *Dangerous Minds* and *Mafia Queens of Mumbai*, a fascinating symmetry emerges. *Mafia Queens* gave voice to the women — often forgotten, often underestimated — who navigated this brutal world with ferocity and grace. *Dangerous Minds* ventured into the heads of criminals, exploring the psychology of deviance and control. *Byculla to Bangkok* stitches both threads together: it shows you the underworld as a social ecosystem, teeming with ambition, love, betrayal, and doom.

Zaidi’s prose is stripped of sentimentality but loaded with moral awareness. He has a journalist’s precision and a novelist’s rhythm. You can feel him weighing every line between curiosity and conscience. When he writes about an encounter killing, there’s no sensationalism — just the weary understanding that in Mumbai, justice often arrives with a bullet.

One of the most compelling strands in *Byculla to Bangkok* is the story of **Arun Gawli**, the “Daddy” of Dagdi Chawl. Gawli fascinates Zaidi because he embodies the paradox of the Indian gangster: part Robin Hood, part local tyrant, part accidental politician. Zaidi portrays him neither as a hero nor as a villain, but as a symptom — a man created by economic collapse and sustained by populism. When Gawli trades his pistol for a politician’s smile, it’s not redemption; it’s adaptation. The crime has simply changed its uniform.

And then there’s **Chhota Rajan**, the fallen brother turned nemesis — Dawood’s mirror image. Rajan’s narrative here feels Shakespearean in scale: betrayal, flight, exile, paranoia. When Zaidi follows Rajan’s trail from Mumbai to Bangkok, you sense the exhaustion of a man who has outlived his own legend. There’s no glory in survival anymore; only isolation.

Zaidi uses these lives to map the **globalization of crime**. The Mumbai mafia, once parochial and rooted in neighborhoods, is now spread across continents. The book’s title reflects that journey — from a cramped chawl in Byculla to the neon sprawl of Bangkok — the way crime migrates, evolves, adapts. Zaidi shows how the same gangsters who once ran extortion rackets now control shipping routes, hawala networks, and international narcotics.

Stylistically, *Byculla to Bangkok* feels more cinematic than *Dongri to Dubai*, yet more intimate. Zaidi isn’t building a linear epic here; he’s weaving vignettes — a cop’s last stand, a gangster’s lonely exile, a mother’s prayer for her son who’ll never come home. The book is structured less like a documentary and more like an elegy — a lament for a world that’s vanished but hasn’t really died.

Zaidi’s genius is in how he brings a moral gaze without ever sermonizing. He understands the underworld as a distorted reflection of legitimate power — both ruled by money, fear, and politics. The gang wars are not aberrations; they’re echoes of the same ruthlessness found in boardrooms and parliaments. When he writes of gangsters, you can almost hear the whisper: these men are not the exception; they are the rule in miniature.

A fascinating comparison can be drawn between *Byculla to Bangkok* and *From Dubai to Karachi: The Dawood Saga Continues*. While the latter focuses on Dawood’s transformation into a geopolitical entity — a criminal whose empire transcends nations — *Byculla to Bangkok* deals with the ruins he left behind. It’s the story of the underworld’s fragmentation. Once Dawood withdrew from the local turf wars, the vacuum unleashed chaos. Gangs split, loyalties crumbled, and Mumbai entered a new phase — where fear no longer had a single face but many.

Zaidi’s depiction of this chaos is both clinical and poetic. He paints a city addicted to its own mythology — unable to quit its fascination with bad men in shiny suits. And yet, he never glorifies them. He reminds you, again and again, that behind every glamorous don is a trail of corpses and shattered families.

Emotionally, *Byculla to Bangkok* is perhaps Zaidi’s most melancholic book. There’s a pervasive sense of **futility** — that the era of the underworld, with all its codes and loyalties, is fading, replaced by a colder, more digital form of crime. The gangsters of Byculla might be killers, but they’re still human; they cry for their brothers, they fear betrayal, they fall in love. The new age of terror and cyber warfare has no such sentimentality. Zaidi captures that transition with quiet despair.

Thematically, the book also resonates with the moral center of *Black Friday*. Both are about systems that fail — police systems, political systems, and even moral systems. The difference is temporal: *Black Friday* depicts the collapse; *Byculla to Bangkok* deals with the aftermath. The wounds are no longer fresh here; they’ve turned into scars, numb but permanent.

Zaidi’s voice, across his entire body of work, has matured from chronicler to philosopher. In *Byculla to Bangkok*, he doesn’t just report crime — he contemplates it. He asks the hard questions: What drives men to power? What happens when the myth of brotherhood crumbles? Is there honor among thieves, or is that just a narrative we build to make chaos palatable?

In passages describing Rajan’s exile or Gawli’s political maneuvering, there’s a haunting quietness — a tone of disillusionment, as if Zaidi himself is tired of the endless cycle of crime, retribution, and decay. And that weariness is powerful. It transforms *Byculla to Bangkok* from a book about gangsters into a meditation on moral entropy.

When compared to Western counterparts like Roberto Saviano’s *Gomorrah* or Misha Glenny’s *McMafia*, Zaidi’s work feels more visceral, more lived-in. His characters aren’t stylized archetypes; they’re men whose faces you might recognize in a local bar or political rally. He doesn’t hide behind sociological abstraction — he’s there, in the lanes of Byculla, walking through the rain, talking to retired cops who still wake up at 3 a.m. haunted by old cases.

That intimacy makes his writing potent. He’s not myth-making; he’s truth-telling in a landscape that would rather forget.

There’s also a strange tenderness that runs beneath Zaidi’s violence. It shows in the way he describes mothers waiting for sons who never return, wives visiting husbands in Arthur Road Jail, and friends betraying each other for survival. It’s that emotional undercurrent that separates Zaidi from mere crime journalists. His books are not just about crime — they’re about **what crime does to people**, to families, to cities, to entire moral landscapes.

That tenderness ties *Byculla to Bangkok* beautifully to *Mafia Queens of Mumbai*. Both books, in a sense, are about resilience — about human beings who refuse to die quietly. The difference is tone: *Mafia Queens* celebrates resistance; *Byculla to Bangkok* mourns inevitability.

In the end, *Byculla to Bangkok* is not about distance — geographical or moral — but about return. No matter how far these gangsters run, from Byculla’s chawls to Bangkok’s nightclubs, they remain haunted by the city that birthed them. Mumbai is both their origin and their curse, a gravitational pull they can never escape.

Zaidi captures that irony perfectly: every gangster’s story begins with the dream of escape and ends with the inevitability of home — either in memory, in longing, or in ashes.

To sum up, *Byculla to Bangkok* is **Zaidi at his most introspective** — a seasoned writer looking back at a generation of men who mistook power for permanence. It’s less about who killed whom, and more about why men keep building empires that always end the same way — in betrayal, bullets, and loneliness.

In the continuum of Zaidi’s underworld chronicles, *Byculla to Bangkok* sits right between the mythic and the modern — bridging *Dongri to Dubai’s* sweeping saga and *From Dubai to Karachi’s* geopolitical chessboard. It’s the human hinge that connects the two.

Moreover, maybe that’s Zaidi’s greatest gift: his ability to turn the underworld into a mirror. You read his books not just to learn about gangsters, but to understand a little more about the world that makes them — and the shadows within ourselves that quietly applaud their defiance.

A great book, sitting perfectly between *Black Friday* and *Byculla to Bangkok*, narratively and thematically. Give it a go.

[Virat hooda · Rating 3 out of 5]

True Wonderer

“Ganda hai par Dhanda hai yeh !” (“Its Bad(..filthy..) but it’s Business!”), this song from the movie Company, seemed to be playing all the while in the background while I was reading this book.

The Mumbai Underworld, Mumbai Mafia….. Organized crime in any part of the world, makes up for a fascinating study, (insensitive, is it? well, its true anyhow) be it the glorified Mob in America, The Cosa Nostra in Sicily, Italy ,The Yakuza in Japan, Bratva in Russia or our very own ‘aamchi muley'(‘our boys’, as Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray once put it) from the Mumbai Underworld. So, the subject matter of this book was obviously intriguing in the extreme, add to it my own personal curiosity about anything related to real crime and the writer’s own credible background (S.Hussain Zaidi was a former investigative journalist, who spent much of his career covering the mafia and crimes in Mumbai) all solid reasons to read his books, specially this one. And so I had, this was my third book my Mr. Zaidi, Dongri to Dubai and Mafia queens of Mumbai being the first two.

Byculla to Bangkok, focuses on those individuals in the Mumbai Mafia,(Arun Gawli, Chota Rajan & Ashwin Naik, mainly these three, but many more big & small) which were perceived (in general? Really?) as Hindu Dons or Gangsters, more ‘Maharashtrian’ than the others (Dawood and his ilk). But let’s overlook that distinction for the time being. The stories of these dreaded gangsters and mob bosses are no doubt most interesting. Add to that the sensational way of writing that only a seasoned journalist could have and you hope to get a treat of a read. But, well, I was left a bit underwhelmed by the whole account. Primarily because his first one(D2D) kind of stole the show. Now, Dongri to Dubai was better in my opinion, Why? because firstly it had a more comprehensive coverage of the subject and it gave you the Origins of crime in Mumbai from the very start .i.e after independence, with Don after Dons and gangs and all that. Secondly, though it was also tainted with bias and sensationalism, Mr.Zaidi had not tried to divide the world of Indian Crime along communal lines (I mean its CRIME, for God’s sake…..umm.... that is, NOT for God’s SAKE obviously). In Byculla to Bangkok, he has kind of botched up both these points. If one book was not enough for the whole story (which of-course, was not) he could have split the whole thing on a more general lines than portraying them in such a fashion. But oh well, I will take it.

Now, despite the interesting and often chilling stories this book contains, it struggled with being a ‘Non fiction’ Vs ‘Sensational Fiction’, often it read like a chronological account of events leading to the formation of a gang, rise of a Don or a vicious gangster, and then their subsequent downfall (All the while trying to be neutral) and some other times it was a sensational almost fictitious tale straight out of the silver screen. Perhaps, when you are this much involved in your subject matter as Mr.Zaidi no doubt is, some musings are pardonable, but what to make of it as a reader I was hard pressed to think.

Despite these few problems that I had with the book, It was a good read nonetheless, well researched and quite informative (just….take some cringe worthy..roamctic vibes with a pinch of salt…its the Mafia after all). The stories about Arun Gawli(alias ‘Daddy’) were specially interesting, about the mills, the allure of crime, about the struggles for dominance with other gangs, the role of politics (Yeah I admit it….I saw the trailer of the movie ‘Daddy’…so I was curious, guilty as charged)

Ahhhh.. Bollywood and its glorification of Crime and Criminals, what would the youth of this country do without you.

Getting back to the book, It is fast paced and not that big (266 pages, Kindle edition) so, you could comfortably finish it in a few sittings. If you are interested in reading about crime , the mafia, their origin stories then this is a must read for you, along with the other two by Mr.Zaidi, because if someone could write credibly about the darkness of that world it would be him. So, pick up this one and travel the congested alleys of Mumbai in the 1970’s, with a whistle on your lips and a ‘Rampuri’ (Knife) tucked in your back.

[Nikita Narvekar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hussain Zaidi’s ‘Byculla to Bangkok — Mumbai’s Maharashtrian Mobsters’ is the much anticipated sequel to his successful book Dongri to Dubai.

Justifying the book’s tagline “Mumbai’s Maharashtrian Mobsters”, it recalls the stories of Chota Rajan, Arun Gawli, Ashwin Naik and some other mobsters.

Zaidi, with his skill of telling tales of Mumbai’s underworld captures the ordinary beginning of what later became the most organised crime syndicate and dreadful series of revenge that unleashed terror and mayhem in the city of dreams.

The underworld’s rule of keeping the family out of rivalry which was first flouted by Dawood Ibrahim led to a gory series with the criminals and dons of Mumbai retaliating through killing members of the rival crime syndicate. This narration of the Mumbai underworld which Zaidi began in Dongri to Dubai is well climaxed in this latest book.

The major characters of this book are the Daddy of Dagdi Chawl, Arun Gawli, who started off in this world of crime from Byculla and Ashwin Naik who perhaps the most and the only well educated don, underworld has ever seen. Chota Rajan, the self-proclaimed patriotic don and a friend turned foe to Dawood is also the prime character of the book, who first got noticed by bashing a policeman openly in public.

The author writes about the notorious gangsters , called as ‘our boys’ by the Shiv Sena, who took to this dark occupation in desperate attempts to make money and because of poverty when the mills in the city were on a verge of closure.

Like all his books, Zaidi has thoroughly researched for this one as well. Despite being a work of non-fiction, the stories are told in a sensational way that catches the reader’s imagination.

The tales of these men have all the essential elements required for a high end drama — love, lust, betrayal, violence and vendetta. Moreover, Zaidi’s knowledge about the underworld and inside stories that never saw the light of the day amuses the readers. All this definitely makes the book a worthy read.

However, the book seems to repeat some of the incidents mentioned in the previous book, Dongri to Dubai, for instance, the unexplained and unjust encounter of Javed Fawda. Also a person who has not read the prequel will find it difficult keeping up with all the information in this book.

All in all, Byculla to Bangkok is a scary account of revenge, broad daylight killings and merciless encounters which lack the intensity of Dongri to Dubai, but is definitely a one time read.

[Gopal Khatokar · Rating 4 out of 5]

भायखळा ते बँकॉक

" डोंगरी ते दुबई " वाचल्या नंतर बाळासाहेब ठाकरे यांनी हुसेन झैदी यांना यात मुंबईतील भूमिपुत्रांचा समावेश नाही असे म्हटले होते. आणि नंतर यात तथ्य वाटून झैदी यांनी या डोंगरी ते दुबई च्या पुडच्या भागाचा प्रपंच केला अर्थातच यामध्ये अरुण गवळी,अश्विन नाईक, रामा नाईक, राजेंद्र निकाळजे ( छोटा राजन) अमर नाईक, सुनील सावंत उर्फ सावत्या, अनिल परब ( वांग्या), सुरेश मंचेकर, सदा पावले आणि अशा कितीतरी मराठी युवक ज्यांची पूर्वी गिरणी कामगारांची पार्श्वभूमी होती. यांना समोर ठेऊन हे लिखाण केलं. भायखळा,परळ, लालबाग या भागात जन्मलेली ही मराठी मुले. मुंबईचे मॅनहटन करण्याची स्वप्न पाहताना, गिरण्यांच्या जागेवर श्रीमंत इमले उभे करताना आपण या भागातील हजारो तरुणांना वाऱ्यावर सोडून दिले. गिरणी कामगारांचे सतत होणारे संप. व त्यातून वाढत चाललेली बेरोजगारी. यामुळे अनेक मराठी तरुण नैराश्याने ग्रासले व गुन्हेगारी कडे वळले. यातच शिवाजी पार्क वरील दसऱ्या मेळाव्यामध्ये बाळासाहेबांनी तुमचा दाऊद तर आमचा गवळी, नाईक ही " आमची मुले " असे उद्गार काढले. परंतु नंतर युतीच्या सरकारमध्ये रक्तरंजित टोळीयुद्ध विरोधात कडक कारवाईचे आदेश देण्यात आले. पोलीस प्रशासनाने देखील " गोळीला गोळीने उत्तर देण्याचे धोरण " अवलंबले. यामुळे वाढत्या गुन्हेगारीला आळा बसण्यास फायदा झाला. वाचताना एक मात्र लक्षात आले की मुंबईची भरभराट झाली ती गिरणी कारखान्यामुळे, माझगाव येथील आयात निर्यात व्यापारामुळे. आज अँड्रॉइडवर जगणाऱ्या आजच्या पिढीला काय माहित की त्यांचे मॉल्स आणि उंच इमारती यांच्या जागी कधीकाळी गिरण्या होत्या त्यांच्यामुळे मुंबई वाढली. त्या गिरण्यांनी मुंबईला तिचा आजचा चेहरा मिळवून दिला. दया नायक, विजय साळसकर, प्रदीप शर्मा या पोलीस अधिकाऱ्यांच्या एन्काऊंटर मोहिमा देखील धैर्यपूर्ण, उत्कंठा वर्धक आहेत.

[Prakash Shenoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most great cities have criminal underbellies. London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mos­cow, Istanbul—all these have nurtured notorious criminal networks. Mumbai’s underworld took shape in the 1950s and 1960s. The pioneering dons came from poor Muslim families—reflecting their socio-economic marginalisation. After the bomb blasts in 1993, the ascendancy of the Shiv Sena-led government and the rise of an elite, trigger-happy police unit, the balance of power shifted in favour of you­nger Maharashtrian Hindu mobsters.

In Byculla to Bangkok, S. Hussain Zaidi focuses on this part of the underworld. The nerve-centre of organised crime runs down Mumbai’s own centre. The ear­lier generation of dons came from the southern end, close to the docks, while their successors lived further mid-town. This lower-middle-class milieu of mill wor­kers, petty government servants and street vendors was host to the dreaded BRA gang (of Babu Reshim, Rama Naik and Arun Gawli) and Amar (Raavan) Naik and his engineer brother Ashwin.

[Nikhil Phafat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most great cities have criminal underbellies. London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mos­cow, Istanbul—all these have nurtured notorious criminal networks. Mumbai’s underworld took shape in the 1950s and 1960s. The pioneering dons came from poor Muslim families—reflecting their socio-economic marginalisation. After the bomb blasts in 1993, the ascendancy of the Shiv Sena-led government and the rise of an elite, trigger-happy police unit, the balance of power shifted in favour of you­nger Maharashtrian Hindu mobsters.

In Byculla to Bangkok, S. Hussain Zaidi focuses on this part of the underworld. The nerve-centre of organised crime runs down Mumbai’s own centre. The  ear­lier generation of dons came from the southern end, close to the docks, while their successors lived further mid-town. This lower-middle-class milieu of mill wor­kers, petty government servants and street vendors was host to the dreaded BRA gang (of Babu Reshim, Rama Naik and Arun Gawli) and Amar (Raavan) Naik and his engineer brother Ashwin.

[Manika Tandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zaidi being Zaidi never disappoints his readers, I bought the book a year but picked it off my shelf 5 days back and I must say it’s another unputdownable piece of creation by Zaidi.
The book moves away from Dawood and focuses on chota Rajan, Shakeel, Arun Gawli, Naik Brothers and ofcourse Salaskar.
Zaidi has a style of making crime so readable and so close to life that the reader is glued to the book.
Violence and deceit one expects to read of, but the strength of this book is also its ability to capture the mundane and almost naive beginnings of what later became organized crime and brutal vendettas which held Mumbai to ransom through the last decades of the twentieth century. Unputdownable.

[Subhashish Bhadra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zaidi is one of my favourite writers. I picked up this book soon after finishing his ‘Dubai to Dongri’. Needless to say, he did not disappoint. The book is thoroughly engaging, even for those like me who have no special affinity for stories from the underworld.

The book follows the trajectory of Mumbai’s Hindu dons - Arun Gawli, Chhota Rajan and Ashwin Naik. These are names that most have heard of, but this book takes us deep into their history and motivations.

I have only two quips with the book. Firstly, keeping track of multiple characters is cognitively difficult, especially when their stories intersect from time to time. Secondly, the last few chapters (end stories of the major characters) felt rushed.

[Saju · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read, especially since the maximum I know about gangs and the rivalry between Chota Rajan and Dawood Ibrahim and Encounter specialists has been through movies such as Ab tak chappan, D Company, Nayakan.
Reading each chapter on its own is fine, as the subject and Zain's writing are good. However it was a bit frustrating considering the person(s) of interest were introduced in a haphazarad manner. I had to go back to previous chapters to understand the context. Also, it would have helped if there was an index included. Despite the shortcoming, it rightly deserves 3 out of 5, not less.

[Sujay Malik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am giving it four stars because this can stand on its own footing as a great book to read. However it is also true that this pales and dilutes if compared to Dongri to Dubai. I understand that comparisons are harsh but they are imminent nonetheless.

The writing is pacy and there are numerous instances where you can't leave the book. The book focuses on how lives of gangsters other than Dawood Ibrahim panned out and it is riveting. At places it starts and ends abruptly and sometimes it becomes difficult to join the dots.

All in all this is definitely a recommended pick up.

[Suraj Bhandage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real characters which ruled Mumbai.
Similar characters are portrayed in many bollywood movies.

A mumbaiker will understand better due to familiarity with the places mentioned .

One must have an idea of Mumbai Maps ( use Google Maps ) to understand the same.

It's really astonishing that so much has happened in this land even before I was born.

It relates Jobless youth , crime, Jails, criminal operations, businessmen, real estate, politicians, police officers, lawyers, bureaucrats, illegal business, international criminal gangs,

Helps in Understanding HOW THE INDIAN SYSTEM works....

[Gourang Ambulkar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very gripping narrative and a load of inside information and anecdotes. However the author has left a lot of loose threads dangling, for example Makadwala brothers, Thakur, Guru Satam etc. For anyone born in the 70s and early 80s in the Mumbai , this book will remind you of the daily dose of gangwar assassinations end ex judicial ( encounters) killing news that flooded the tabloids in the 90s Mumbai.

[Pranjal Kulkarni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mumbai mafia makes the book engrossing. Being new to this story, I am finding it exceptionally difficult to keep a track of every person who is introduced (spoiler, or as you may expect from a mafia documentation, they all keep dying). The writing is really visual and keeps one hooked, but ironically more pictures of these people involved would have really helped.

Mostly abandoning it at chapter 15, and I will only skim through some political chapters.

[Jigar Shirish Dharamshi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good story, but very poorly written I felt. Captured all the elements and a lot of information, but the structure could've been far better. Compared to dongri to dubai, I felt lost a lot of times in this book. The build up didnt happen properly, kept jumping from one gangster to the other. Could have been better structured.

[Thangaraj Kannan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In line with Dongri to Dubai, Zaidi goes on to explain the history and details of the Don's who were the Sons of Soil (Maharahtra).
Unlike the earlier book, this involves more of the gangster's killings on the major and not exactly the uprising as a Don.
The book could have been better.
Still, have to appreciate the author's effort for getting the interview details in the book.

[Nikita Niki · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is less exploration of Balasaheb Thackeray's angle in this book. His character is less explored. There are no two sides to him. Those whom he supported, he supported full on. So, there must be something else that needs to explored.

The research should get deeper than just black and white.