Directed by Chinmay Madlekar and starring Manoj Bajpayee and Jim Sarbh in lead roles, Inspector Zende is inspired by the real life of Mumbai’s super cop, Madhukar Zende. It’s not often that you find a police officer untouched by institutionalized corruption, who is honest in his approach, and more than anything derives extreme gratification by doing his duty sincerely. The film makes use of a formalist approach in portraying its characters, something that we have witnessed in the works of filmmaker Wes Anderson. It is a bit over the top, and it tries to keep things lighthearted. But that does not mean that the events shown in the film are a work of imagination. So let’s analyze every major event in the film and try to understand if things really happened this way in real life.
How did Zende catch Charles Sobhraj?
The film starts by stating that Zende caught Charles Sobhraj (Carl Bhograj in the film) in the year 1971. That is absolutely true, and Zende stated in one of his interviews how he got a tip that Charles might come to the New India Insurance Building as he had plans of looting a merchant. Zende caught him red-handed, and that’s how he came into the limelight. Also, his colleagues and his superiors got to know that he was an efficient officer, somebody who had excelled during his days at the police academy and who had been a part of the police force since the state of Maharashtra was created in 1960.
Zende states how the Bombay he knew had changed over the years, and how he had to keep adapting to the contemporary times. We all know about the infamous jailbreak of Charles Sobhraj that became a matter of national embarrassment. Tihar, which is no less than a fortress, was once breached by the notorious criminal. There is no doubt about the fact that Charles owned the system. He could get what he wanted, and those he favored thrived even inside the toughest prison in India. That was the power and influence the man wielded. So on 16th March 1986, Charles escaped from Tihar Jail with the help of his girlfriend, Marie Andree Leclerc, a few of his men, and some prison guards who were on his payroll. The food given to the guards was spiked, and Charles probably knew that his audacious move would be talked about for ages. I believe it was such stunts that contributed towards making him a pop culture icon.
So Charles escaped, and he went to Goa, and just like it was portrayed in the film, Zende got a tip about it. He got the number of the motorbike that Charles rode in Goa, and he knew that if he could track that vehicle, he would find Charles. That scene where a mechanic told Zende that he was a cunning man who was lying about the fact that the motorcycle belonged to his brother happened in real life. Zende, in real life too, had figured out that Charles would definitely try to contact his wife, who stayed in the United States. At that time, there were no mobile phones, and so he knew that he would come to some place from where he could make international calls. There was a restaurant in Porvorim, Goa, from where you could make international calls without much paperwork. Zende was sure that Charles wouldn’t risk going to a proper telephone exchange. Zende had also revealed that Charles might be planning to get on one of the cargo ships using a fake American passport. But still he decided to stay at that restaurant, because something inside told him that the man would show up there. Zende, together with his officers from the Mumbai police, caught Charles Sobhraj on 6th April 1986, which was also his birthday. With bare minimum resources and manpower, and not even having enough daily allowances to live comfortably in a place like Goa, what the Mumbai Police was able to pull off was no less than a miracle.
Where is Madhukar Zende now?
Inspector Madhukar Zende stated in an interview he gave to the protagonist of the film, Manoj Bajpayee, that he had a very happy family life. He said that he loved his wife and he appreciated the kind of support and understanding she provided him. Zende knew that it was not easy to be his partner, not because there was something wrong with him but because he was an extremely sincere and workaholic man. His wife, as shown in the film, had to understand that often his duty towards his nation came before anything else. She got scared when she learned he had to leave for Goa to catch such a dreaded killer, but there too she was extremely supportive of him. There was a very sweet thing that Zende said he did with his wife: to appreciate the kind of effort she put in every day, he always made her have the first bite with his own hands whenever she served him food. The man has nothing but gratitude towards what life had to offer him. His energy is infectious even at the age of 88, and so one could imagine the kind of enthusiasm he would have had back in the day. Apart from catching Charles Sobhraj, Zende also arrested people like Arun Gulab Gawli a couple of times, had an encounter with the infamous don, Dawood Ibrahim, and even arrested the revered Haji Mastan. The inspector proudly stated how Rajiv Gandhi once stopped his procession just to meet him and appreciate his efforts. Madhukar Zende authored a book titled Mumbai’s Most Wanted as he was also involved in the filming and production of this film. He recently featured on many podcasts too where he shed some light on how his journey in the Mumbai police force had been. He is still pretty active, and he met the writers and the director of the film multiple times in Mumbai, to give them whatever input he could from his end. It seemed to me that Zende is a man who takes a lot of pride in the fact that the system could never corrupt his heart, and he always followed the path of honesty.
