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Bombay (பம்பாய்)

Bombay (பம்பாய்) is a 1995 Indian Tamil-language romantic drama film written and directed by Mani Ratnam, starring Arvind Swamy and Manisha Koirala, with music composed by A. R. Rahman.¹ It tells the story of an inter-religious couple, a Hindu man and a Muslim woman, who marry against their families' wishes and then live through the Bombay riots of 1992–93.² Controversial on release, it was delayed by censors, protested by Muslim leaders, and banned in Singapore and Malaysia, yet it became a major commercial success and is regarded as a landmark of Indian cinema.³^•⁴

Key fact	Detail
Release	10 March 1995, India (wide theatrical); some sources give 11 March¹^•⁵
Director and writer	Mani Ratnam; produced by S. Sriram, Mani Ratnam, and Jhamu Sughand¹^•³
Lead cast	Arvind Swamy as Shekhar Narayanan Pillai; Manisha Koirala as Shaila Banu; Nassar as Shekhar's father⁶
Music	A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Vairamuthu; songs include "Humma Humma", "Kannalane", and "Uyire Uyire"¹^•⁷
Historical setting	The 1992–93 Bombay riots following the demolition of the Babri Masjid on 6 December 1992⁸
Censorship	Release held about a month and a half; roughly a minute and a half of footage cut; banned in Singapore and Malaysia⁹^•¹⁰^•³
Box office	The Hindi dubbed version earned INR 140 million (INR 14 crore; US$2.1 million), a figure Box Office India described as phenomenal for a dubbed film¹¹

Spoilers

Plot

Shekhar (Arvind Swamy) is the son of an orthodox Hindu, Narayana Pillai (Nassar), in a coastal village in Tamil Nadu, and a journalism student in Bombay. On a visit home he falls in love with Shaila Banu (Manisha Koirala), a Muslim schoolgirl. Both fathers reject the match on religious grounds, and the couple elopes to Bombay, where they marry and have twin sons, Kamal and Kabeer, who are raised to appreciate both Hindu and Muslim traditions.¹²^•¹³^•²⁰

The film's second half is set against the communal violence that followed the destruction of the Babri Masjid by Hindu nationalists on 6 December 1992. Riots tear the city apart, the family is shattered, and the children, traumatized by repeated attacks, lose their ability to speak. Shekhar and Shaila must find their lost children while their estranged fathers are forced to confront their differences to save the family.⁸^•²^•⁴

Historical background

The film was made only about two years after the events it depicts. On 6 December 1992 Hindu fanatics plundered the 16th-century Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, and in January 1993 Bombay was overrun by riots between Hindus and Muslims that left about two thousand dead.⁸ The Los Angeles Times put the toll in the 1992 and 1993 communal riots at 600 people, mostly Muslims.⁹ The violence culminated in the serial bomb blasts of 12 March 1993, in which bombs exploded at 13 locations in Bombay, including the stock exchange and the Air India office, killing 257 people.¹⁴

Ratnam has said the idea took shape while he was making Thiruda Thiruda in Bombay when the blasts occurred; he resolved to raise a voice against violence, and Bombay was the result.¹⁴ He described the film as being not about the riots themselves but about a helpless, innocent man caught up in violence not of his own making, a film about humanism and people caring for each other.¹⁵

Censorship and controversy

Certification proved difficult. The film's exploration of an inter-religious marriage set against the riots ran into the Maharashtra election period, and the Central Board of Film Certification held up release for a month and a half. Ratnam recalled that the film was censored in Mumbai before audiences that included not only the board but also the secretary, the minister, and the minister's relatives; a commissioner of police told him the film would never see the light of day. The cuts were eventually light, about a minute and a half of footage, and the film was cleared a week after the Maharashtra elections.¹⁰

Pressure came from several directions at once. After Muslim leaders, including Raxa Academy general secretary Ibrahim Tai, attended a special screening on 6 April 1995 and argued that the film insulted the culture and religion of Muslims, the Bombay police commissioner ordered its release stayed for a week.¹⁶ The police commissioner in Hyderabad ordered it withdrawn from 15 theaters, and teenagers in Thane stoned cars to protest the film.⁹ The Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray was involved at the post-production stage, acting, in one scholarly account, as an "ex-officio Board of Censors"; Ratnam acknowledged showing the film to Thackeray and obtaining his assent.¹⁷^•¹⁸ The film was banned outright in Singapore and Malaysia.³

The controversy followed the director home. On 10 July 1995 bombs were thrown at Mani Ratnam's house in Alwarpet, Chennai; according to one account the bomb missed its target and fell on a neighboring roof.¹⁴^•⁵

Music

The soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman, who had worked under Ilaiyaraaja and was 27 when he scored Bombay, after the successes of Roja (1992) and Thiruda Thiruda (1993).¹⁹ Songs include "Andha Arabi Kadaloram", "Kannalane", and "Uyire Uyire", with lyrics by Vairamuthu.⁷ The British Film Institute calls the score a virtuoso work now regarded as a masterpiece, and the soundtrack is considered one of the greatest Indian soundtracks of all time.⁴^•³

Reception and legacy

The film was both a critical and a box office hit. It broke box-office records for Indian films abroad and is one of the highest-grossing Tamil-language films of all time.⁸^•⁴ The Hindi dubbed version alone earned INR 140 million (INR 14 crore; US$2.1 million), which Box Office India called phenomenal for a dubbed film.¹¹ The film was dubbed in Hindi, Telugu, and Malayalam under the same title and screened at international film festivals, and it was ranked among the top 20 Indian films in the British Film Institute's rankings.³

Critics placed it in Ratnam's political trilogy alongside Roja and Dil Se.²⁰ The BFI describes it as a romantic musical and pacifist plea set against the Hindu-Muslim riots of the early 1990s, and its list of great films set in Mumbai notes that the film uses its journalist protagonist to castigate politicians who stoke religious animosity.²¹^•²² The scholar Lalitha Gopalan devoted a volume in the BFI Film Classics series to the film, examining how official censors tried to change it under pressure from both Muslim and Hindu community figures and how its themes are rendered through performance, choreography, song, and cinematography.²³ Academic criticism has also been directed at the film: scholars writing in 1995 argued that it aestheticized communal violence and displaced political agency from Muslims to a secular Hindu protagonist.²⁴

Three decades after release, retrospectives still treat the film as a durable cinematic record of the Bombay riots, and its crew, including Ratnam, Koirala, and cinematographer Rajiv Menon, revisited its Kerala shooting locations in 2025.¹⁹^•²⁵

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Tamil films before 2000 › Released 1992 to 1999

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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