Russi Karanjia reprised?

Russi Karanjia, founder editor of Blitz, India’s first weekly tabloid, is reportedly the model on which the character of an influential media mogul played by Karan Johar in the movie Bombay Velvet has been created. Sources informed Mumbai Mirror (MM) on September 24, 2013 that Kaizad Khambatta, the character played by Johar, "a quick witted, impeccably dressed flamboyant journalist with a devil may care attitude” bears "an uncanny resemblance to colorful and controversial newspaper baron who ruffled quite a few feathers with his fearless exposes and had the wit and gumption to feature an actress nude on the cover of the very first edition of his entertainment magazine, Cine Blitz.”

Russy Karanjia: "devil may care attitude"

The film’s director Anurag Kashyap described Johar’s role as "that of a media tycoon who goes on to resurrect his empire,” while stressing that this is largely a fictional character. MM quotes historian Gyan Prakash describing Karanjia thus: "He brashly promoted himself and his paper. During his long editorship of Blitz, he took many controversial and unpredictable positions. He railed against the powerful but was not averse to cozying up to those at the top.” The tabloid questions whether, since the movie has been inspired by Prakash’s Mumbai Fables which includes a chapter on Karanjia’s career graph, especially in early post-Independence India, this could be a mere coincidence.