Authors: S. Hussain Zaidi
Mastan replied, ‘Nothing too dangerous. I have a lot of goods coming in at the docks at Bombay Port Trust. They need to be unloaded quickly and efficiently, taken and stored in a warehouse, and then, transported out. Your men will have to give their protection to me and my men, for the goods at the docks and the warehouses, until they are sold off. That’s all.’ Mastan knew that if he pitched it like this, the up and coming Karim Lala would be assured that there would not be much danger involved.
Karim Lala sat back and folded his arms across his chest, brow furrowed as he thought about Mastan’s proposition. After a minute, he asked, ‘I see. Will there be any violence involved?’
Mastan smiled. He knew he had Karim Lala hooked. ‘Khan saab, if your men are around, there isn’t a soul who will dare intrude or interrupt us. So there won’t really be much violence involved.’
‘Well then, it sounds pretty doable. But what do I get out of this, Mastan bhai?’
‘Well, Khan saab, I can’t promise you a fixed cut, but our shares will depend upon the value of the goods that we unload. So, how about we decide on our shares on a consignment basis?’
Mastan knew this was the tricky part, but he knew, almost as a certainty, that in the end Karim would not be able to resist.
A short silence prevailed, in which Mastan watched the man sitting across him think furiously. Finally, Karim Lala released a deep breath, looked up, and, with a smile, offered his hand. Mastan took it, and shook hands. This sealed one of the deadliest deals of the time in the Bombay underworld, Mastan would be the brains, and Karim Lala would provide the brawns. Finally, Karim Lala had skyrocketed into the big league.
This newfound alliance presented a headache for the cops. Mastan was a well-connected smuggler and Karim Lala, a ruthless muscleman: a most unholy alliance. As Mastan’s political connections were well oiled, they knew they could not touch him; they decided to try to clip Lala’s wings.
In a very concerted attempt, cops unleashed a crackdown on Karim Lala and his brother Rahim’s gambling dens. At times their hotel managers were picked up, detained and subjected to relentless questioning. Baida Gully began to see frequent visits from the police. Strangely, these police officers came bragging about what they could do to Karim Lala because of his involvement in mediation and eviction deals. But after all their histrionics and hard talk, they left tamely, pockets full of
bakshish
(bribe). Once in a while Karim Lala was also summoned to the CID office. Threats were issued that he would be produced in front of the then Deputy Commissioner of Police Huzur Ahmed Khan, but the moment he put his hands in his pocket and brought out wads of notes, they became as docile as donation seekers from charity organisations.
The only policeman the Karim Lala respected was Head Constable, Havaldar Ibrahim Kaskar. Ibrahim had never ever asked him for money and never displayed any sort of deference towards him. In fact, despite his being a constable, Ibrahim chose to admonish him in the strongest terms. They had known each other for several years and Ibrahim exhorted him to close down his gambling dens and his business of lending money on interest, as both businesses were considered haram in Islam and thus the money earned qualified as unlawful and ill-gotten.
Karim Lala was astonished at Ibrahim’s devoutness and bluntness in the face of a notorious don. Ibrahim was a pauper and was struggling to make both ends meet, yet he did not want to accept money from him and preferred to survive on a meagre salary of 75 rupees a month. Karim Lala had never felt such a sense of respect for anyone else in his life—he almost venerated Ibrahim. Despite the head constable being younger to him by a decade or more, Lala began to call him Ibrahim Bhai.
7
The Original Don: Baashu
T
he three men lurking near the state-run JJ Hospital in Teli Mohalla looked so menacing that passers-by instinctively crossed the road to avoid them. Khalid Pehelwan, Raheem Pehelwan, and Lal Khan were massively built by Indian standards. They had earned the title ‘
Pehelwan’
, or wrestler, by toiling at their boss’ gym. Their effort showed in the biceps that bulged under their taut skin.
While the trio flexed their muscles and others scurried past, a gleaming black Mercedes Benz glided into view; the kind that was later popularised as the customary ride of innumerable reel dons. The gritty neighbourhood of Teli Mohalla seemed transformed by the moment. In the early seventies, people saw few Mercs cruise the streets of Bombay. They were beyond the means of all but a handful of people, and Ahmed Khan alias Don or Baashu Dada belonged to that exclusive club. He was the vain owner of not one, but two of these expensive status symbols.
When the car pulled in close to his office, Baashu Dada’s minions stood to attention. According to his closest aides, Baashu Dada was unlettered and incapable of even signing his own name. Despite this, he wielded absolute power over his fiefdom of Dongri in the seventies.
The don stepped out, clad in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, his well-built frame matching those of his acolytes. Baashu Dada never wore full-sleeved shirts. He liked to show off his body builder’s biceps and sinewy forearms. He wanted to show that he was as strong as he was shrewd.
Today, as Baashu Dada walked up to his henchmen, he threw down the gauntlet at once. ‘What kind of fucking pehelwans are you?’ he thundered. ‘Can you do a hundred push-ups without a break?’
Khalid and Raheem’s ability had never been questioned with such contempt and that too by Baashu Dada. They had little choice but to prove themselves.
‘Of course, I can do a 100 dips,’ Rahim replied, trying to salvage his wounded pride.
‘Go on, do it!’ Baashu egged him on, ‘Khalid, you join him too!’
Teli Mohalla was abuzz. A small crowd gathered to watch the two wrestlers in their exertions. Both took up their positions, palms outstretched, hips raised, and legs extended, only their toes touching the ground.
The countdown began: one… two… three… four… five… .
Baashu Dada joined the battle of the biceps, slipping into position easily. The crowd’s excitement went up a notch.
By the twentieth push-up, Khalid and Raheem were panting. But Baashu Dada, who had been quietly keeping pace, showed no signs of flagging. When they crossed seventy, the going got even tougher. With each passing number, Rahim found it more and more difficult to rise. When he hit eighty-seven, he could not do it anymore. He flopped to the ground, his face kissing the dirt.
Khalid managed three more dips. He was determined not to collapse in a heap like Rahim. He also did not want to lose when he was so close. Unable to rise and too spent to dip again, he suddenly froze, mid-position, sweat pouring from his creased forehead. His heavyset body trembled with the effort.
By now, Baashu Dada had become the centre of attention. He had cruised past ninety and was well on his way to a century. But instead of stopping at 100, he continued with astonishing speed. His breathing got heavy when he crossed 110, but he never once slowed down. When he finally stopped at 120, his T-shirt was drenched with sweat, but he rose to his feet and gave both his bodyguards a big smile. He had proven his point. He did not exchange any words, but ordered three glasses of badam sherbet.
Badam sherbet (a sweet, refreshing concoction made of milk and almonds) was the favourite drink of Muslim bodybuilders of yesteryears. For men like Khalid and Raheem, it symbolised a reward for their hard labour.
The two men from Uttar Pradesh worked out at Baashu Dada’s Teli Mohalla headquarters, which doubled up as a gym. Huge mirrors lined the walls of this room, while an assortment of pulleys, dumbbells, and barbells were strewn on the floor.
It was from this den that Baashu Dada surveyed his smuggling universe and lorded over Dongri, the toughest territory in the city. One of the top smugglers of his time, Baashu dealt in gold and silver.
The police steered clear of Baashu Dada, as he was the most powerful don in the area. In fact, the local policemen regularly sought his help in solving cases. Baashu’s contacts in the city helped them nab pickpockets, bicycle thieves, violent criminals, and underground casino operators.
Baashu Dada’s helpful gestures did not go unrewarded. When the customs department or the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence implicated him in a smuggling case, policemen from the Dongri Police Station or the Yellow Gate Police Station found themselves in a tricky situation.
To save face, they would ostensibly mount raids on Baashu Dada’s premises. The police jeep would park at the corner of the NU Kitab Ghar at the JJ Junction. An officer, accompanied by a lone constable, would get out of the jeep, take off his cap and walk towards Baashu’s evening
baithak
. The don would not budge an inch from his seat, barely acknowledging the policeman’s presence. And the officer would greet him humbly and sit on a chair, if he was offered one.
Sometimes, the don would treat these men in uniform to badam sherbet. At other times, he would ask them to leave, no questions asked. Even the policemen of Bombay, who had the reputation of being India’s toughest, were forced to comply—if not grovel—in front of Baashu. Once a starving slum dweller, Baashu Dada had scaled dizzying heights.
Baashu landed in Bombay in the post-Independence years of poverty and despair. A young boy barely in his teens, he spent days searching for food in the south Bombay areas of Null Bazaar, Khetwadi, and Grant Road. Although he made some money as a cycle mechanic and errand boy at a scrap shop, he went hungry more often than not. One day, in a desperate bid for survival, Baashu snatched a leather bag from a Marwari businessman outside Shalimar Talkies and ran for his life. When the businessman raised an alarm, a mob started chasing him. At the Null Bazaar junction, a police constable nabbed him and confiscated the bag, which was stuffed with wads of currency.
As punishment, Baashu was sent to the Dongri Remand Home, the city’s biggest penitentiary for juvenile offenders. At the age of 15, he had to work like a hardened convict, lifting heavy barrels of water and gunny bags. It was in the throes of such strenuous work that Baashu began to pay attention to the interesting ways his body was changing, his friend Shaikh Abdul Rahim alias Rahim Chacha recalls. The initial fancy he took to bodybuilding turned into an obsession. With his expanding pectorals and bulging biceps, he became a force to reckon with inside the remand home; the inmates and even the wardens became wary of his volatile temper and physical prowess.
Legend has it that Baashu once slapped a cook for serving him less food. The enraged cook retaliated by hitting him with an iron rod, which Baashu twisted out of shape with ease. The astonished eyewitnesses, who had never seen such a display of brute strength, grew increasingly deferential to Baashu.
The administration, which had initially sought to punish him for this act of intimidation, let it pass as the lad was only few months short of 18, the age of release from the remand home.
Once released, Baashu joined the ranks of unemployed youth in the city. But not for long. Before his release, he had chalked out a plan of action. For, inside the remand home he had met a couple of teenage criminals who showed him how to make a quick buck.
Swiftly, he assembled a band of equally daring boys who were itching to make some money. The newly founded gang waited outside the Bombay dock at Masjid Bunder and clambered atop trucks carrying imported fabrics and electronic items. By the time the truck reached the city, Baashu and his gang managed to steal enough goods to earn themselves several thousand rupees at Mohatta Market. These exploits earned the intrepid Baashu an early nickname:
godi ka chuha
(dock rat).
The profits he made off this scam were sufficient to afford Baashu a luxurious lifestyle. But soon enough, he got bored of this risky small- time business. He turned his eye to direct smuggling. In the very first consignment of Rolex and Rado watches he smuggled in, he managed a windfall profit. Within months, the young man made it to the top league, joining Haji Mastan and his fellow don Bakhiya. He began driving fancy cars and bought flats in plush Malabar Hill, in addition to several other properties in Bombay and a few in Hyderabad. Secretly, though, Baashu was quite disdainful of Mastan and Bakhiya. He was a self-made man, who saw to all the nitty-gritty himself, and consequently, never thought highly of anyone who would make others do all the dirty work for them.
One quality remained unchanged despite his meteoric rise: his obsession with bodybuilding. This extended to his collective use of force; unlike other smugglers like Haji Mastan, who had to hire muscle from Karim Lala or Varda, Baashu always used his own muscle and men to conduct his business.
Baashu, like most dons, hated the system and treated the police machinery with disdain—something no other don before or after him managed so effortlessly, perhaps. Among the members of his coterie, however, was the retired head constable, Ibrahim Kaskar, so revered by Karim Lala. Baashu was a master puppeteer who manipulated and used several retired and serving cops. Ibrahim was one of these, a former head constable. Under the guise of friendship, Baashu would often make use of Ibrahim and his knowledge of the system to get his smuggled goods cleared by customs. But despite all the contempt he displayed when it came to the police force, he showed deference towards Ibrahim bhai. Baashu genuinely liked the man for his honesty and integrity. He often told Ibrahim bhai, ‘
Agar aap police mein na hote toh aap mere saath hote
[if you weren’t with the police, you would work for me]
.’
And known for his bluntness, Ibrahim Bhai would retort, ‘God forbid, I’d never have to see a day like that’.