Safari suits and tabloid scoops

Anurag Kashyap's period drama, Bombay Velvet, draws inspiration from its screenplay writer, Gyan Prakash's book Mumbai Fables. And Manish Chaudhari who plays charismatic newspaper editor, Jimmy Mistry, admits he based Jimmy on Blitz editor, Russi Karanjia.

“During the initial discussions, I asked Gyan, a professor of modern Indian history at Princeton, which Mumbai club Russi would have frequented? He retorted, `Russi didn't need to go to a club. He was the `club', the world came to him.' That line became the spine of my prep,“ says Manish from Bhuj, where he's shooting Ashutosh Gowarikar's period drama, Mohenjo-daro.

As part of his research, Manish visited Russi's closed-up house in Cuffe Parade, went up the stairs to his office, discussed the jazz days with Taj Mahal Foxtrot's author, Naresh Fernandes, and spoke with Russi's colleagues, including Feroze Chandra, about the man who pioneered tabloid journalism in India with a weekly that promoted itself by painting its page one onto the side of the five-storey building opposite its office, the tallest building in Mumbai then.

“Blitz was known for its breaking news but Russi was a journalist of integrity who despite dressing up like an upper-class Parsi championed the cause of the underdog, from factory and mill workers to farmers. His colleagues looked up to him,“ says Manish. Will any of the Blitz scoops make their way into the film? “Some will, won't say which,“ he laughs, adding that Jimmy's nemisis in the film is Karan Johar's character.

Anurag approached him in 2009 after he seeing him in Ranbir Kapoor's Rocket Singh and sent him an early copy of the screenplay in 2012. Later, after seeing Manish working on the details of his look with the sylists and make-up artists, the director playfully told the actor that he may have OCD.

“I ended up with a cigar between my lips and in a safari suit,“ says Manish who met an 80-year-old tailor, working out of the ground floor of the former Blitz building. “He and his father made Russi's suits. His anecdotes and pictures, along with the other research, were my references. I hope Russi's family, friends and colleagues will enjoy Jimmy.“