Dongri to Dubai (9 page)

Police officials recall how smooth a talker Varda was. They recollect instances when his men, who habitually dodged the police, would come and surrender willingly at his behest. ‘He kept both sides of the rung happy. He would keep a tab on each of his soldiers. The minute he knew that the accused was wanted at the lower rungs, he would negotiate with the police and get the accused in front of them. Once inside, the accused was confident that he would be bailed out. In turn, once his men were inside the jail, they would start the second rung of recruitment for Varda,’ says a senior police official adding, ‘there was a designated hotel at Sion Koliwada where so-called surrenders took place.’ ‘The maximum number of arrests has taken place at this hotel over cutting
chai
and bun maska on the table than out on the field,’ says veteran crime journalist, Pradeep Shinde.

After striking his alliance with Varda and greasing more palms of customs officials, Mastan’s beliefs in the right collaborations and connections grew manifold. Also, Mastan concluded that as his ill-gotten empire was growing, he had to be wary of cops. He realised that if he wanted to play it safe, he had to befriend some policemen and politicians. Then, Mastan became aware that while foreign gold was popular in Bombay, silver from Bombay was in great demand abroad. He started importing gold from Africa and the Middle East and starting selling silver bricks known as
chandi ki eente
to countries from where he was importing gold.

As Mastan’s empire was growing tremendously, it became almost impossible for him to supervise each and every operation, so he enlisted the help of a man called Yusuf Patel. Yusuf Patel was Mastan’s acolyte and considered Mastan his mentor. While learning the tricks of the trade from Mastan, his fortunes grew. Yusuf knew that the silver bricks that Mastan sent abroad were considered of the purest quality and even had a ‘brand’ name: ‘Mastan ki Chaandi’. His honesty in the business had earned him his credibility.

Mastan, who had dreams of owning a bungalow and a fleet of foreign cars, now finally saw them take shape. He had a palatial house in Malabar Hill and several cars at his disposal. After marrying Sabiha Bi from Madras, Mastan had three daughters, Kamarunissa, Mehrunissa, and Shamshad.

On the business front, Mastan was now known to be the most affluent don in the city, and was growing from strength to strength. He began to use other ports like Chembur, Versova, and the Thane creek. And by the early seventies, Varda in central Bombay, Haji Mastan in the south and west, and the final member of their triumvirate, a Pathan called Karim Lala who provided the muscle, formed the most formidable alliance of smugglers and dons in Bombay. When they were mentioned together, they inspired awe in the youth and other small or aspiring dons.

6

Pathan Power

N
o one, not even his family, knew exactly when Karim Lala arrived in Bombay. What is known is that it was approximately in the thirties. Mumbai was known even then for its cosmopolitan identity and inclusive character. Nepalese, Burmese, Ceylonese, and
Kabuliwallahs
(Pathans) visited the city and made it their home because they saw more opportunities for business and personal advancement in Bombay than they ever saw in cities like Kabul, Kathmandu, or Colombo.

Abdul Karim Khan alias Karim Lala, a towering Pathan—almost 7 feet tall— came to Bombay from Peshawar with dreams in his eyes. Unlike his mentor Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, whom he followed into the country, he was not drawn to India’s freedom struggle. Despite being a bonafide member of the Pakhtoon Jirga-e Hind, he did not participate in the movement. Instead, he was drawn to the city of Bombay—a city of myriad hues, which was very different from his motherland, with its mountains and wilderness. He fell in love with the city and decided to call it his own.

Karim Khan, like several others, had come to Bombay in search of fortune. He wanted to achieve here what he could not achieve in Peshawar. He rented a place in south Bombay, in Baida Gully near Grant Road station. Uneducated and unskilled, Karim Khan decided to be self-employed, as he could not think of any other way to earn a decent living.

He started off by establishing a gambling den — euphemistically known as a ‘social club’—on the street he lived in. The club was frequented by all kinds of people—paupers and those with deep pockets; those who could afford to lose money and those who struggled to survive; daily wage labourers and middle-class men. Heavy losers borrowed money from Khan or his men to buy groceries or other necessities. When Khan noticed that this was becoming a trend, he decided to put an end to it by asking the borrowers to pay him interest on the 10
th
of every month for the borrowed sum. This discouraged some but others remained undaunted. Khan noticed that his cash box swelled on the tenth of every month, despite the interest, and encouraged by this, he decided to become a moneylender or
lala
. Thus, Karim Khan came to be known as Karim ‘Lala’.

Karim Lala was not the only Pathan who lent money and lived off the interest. His brother, Abdul Rahim Khan alias Rahim Lala, also ran a social club near Jail Road in Dongri. There were other Pathans who did not own gambling dens but were affluent enough to lend money. Life started looking up for the sizeable Pathan community in the city.

Over a period of time, Karim Lala’s gambling den became a hotspot for crime. Violence, brawls, and mugging became routine. This brought him into contact with the local police and subsequently with Crime Branch officials. But Karim Lala managed to bribe his way out of legal entanglements. Slowly and gradually he began to grow in stature and clout. Some began to refer to him in grander terms as Karim Dada. Following their tribal tradition the Pathans, who had begun to crowd around Karim Lala, looked up to him as their leader. In return, he would bail them out of tricky situations, from time to time involving himself in their concerns.

Soon Karim Lala became a household name in south Bombay and unwittingly became part of what is referred to as
matter patana
or
kholi khali karana
.
Matter patana
meant resolving an ongoing dispute by becoming an arbitrator between the two parties, while
kholi khali karana
meant evicting the occupant of a house by force. This informal arbitration, truth be told, was much smoother than the court cases and resultant verdicts were treated with more respect than those that had the seal of the court.

Karim Lala developed a formidable reputation for himself as a mediator. It started off with his getting involved in the concerns of friends and their own friends, but gradually the Pathan became the choicest arbiter in any kind of dispute in south Bombay. Soon, he realised he was raking in good money because of this weekly arbitration, which took place on the terrace of his building on Sundays.

At this point, his cronies like Murad Khan and Yaqub Khan decided to diversify into eviction. South Bombay had the maximum number of houses on the
pagdi
system, in those days.
Pagdi
technically means turban, but in this context it means that the tenant has placed his
pagdi
or honour in the hands of the owner, and which he will get back once he vacates the house. In the business, this
pagdi
system meant that once an individual gave the money to the owner, he or she would have complete right over the property. In the sixties and seventies, even 500 sq feet tenements were given out for a nominal amount of 5,000 to 10,000 rupees. At times, the rooms were given out for 9 to 99 years in a lease as low as 20,000 rupees. So when after a couple of years, the seller regretted giving out the room for such a meagre amount, he expected more money, which the occupant might not agree to pay, later in the day. There were also several instances when the lease period was completed, but the occupant was not budging or shelling out more money. In cases like these, the landlord or the tenant made use of the services of Karim Lala and his minions.

Karim Lala realised that he could make more money out of this than through lending money, waiting for the 10
th
of every month. As this new business thrived, he took on such a fearsome aura that several properties were evicted just by mention of his name. No sooner did the landlord say,
‘Ab toh Lala ko bulana padega
[now Lala needs to be called]
’
, the occupant, whether in the right or wrong, would vacate the house.

It was now several years after Indian Independence and the Pathans had now settled in comfortably. Khan had become the uncrowned leader of the Pathans in the city. His exact age was not known, but in the early fifties, the Pathans threw a huge party for his fiftieth birthday.

Karim Lala had now graduated from starched Pathani suits to white safari suits. He had a flamboyant lifestyle. He sported dark glasses and was almost always seen smoking expensive cigars and pipes. On his 50
^th
birthday, one of his sycophants gifted him an expensive walking stick. Initially, Karim Lala had frowned at the gift saying he was still strong and fit enough to walk around without the help of a stick. But when several of his aides suggested this would only add to the strength of his personality, Karim Lala readily agreed. After this, he could be seen walking with his fancy new present at all major gatherings.

The stick began to accompany the man everywhere. If he went to the mosque and got up for ablutions, leaving the stick behind, even if the mosque got crammed and crowded, no one would dare to move the stick aside or occupy Karim Lala’s prayer spot. Likewise, in any social gathering, if he made a trip to the washroom and left his stick behind, resting on a sofa, no one would dare to come and sit on the sofa. There was much talk of the stick and the awe it commanded amongst ordinary mortals. Remarkably, Karim Lala enjoyed this new height of power without having entailed bloodshed or effort.

Landlords like Chaman Singh Mewawala and Abdul Qureishi who had become regulars in Lala’s
baithaks
(gatherings) realised that every time they contracted Lala for an eviction, they had to dole out a sizeable amount to him and his goons. So, in order to cut down on expenses, they sought to use solely the symbol of his power and pay a fraction of what they had to otherwise pay him.

Between the two of them they devised a plan to obtain his consent so that he would not know the actual reason behind the proposal. Catching him when he was in a good mood one morning, they began. As Lala had been running into rough weather with the cops and CID and they were making a file on him, they suggested he should abstain from physically leading eviction assaults and even avoid sending his Man Fridays.

‘Phir kholi kaisa khali karega
[then how will the eviction happen]?’
Lala asked with sincere concern. ‘
Hamari khopdi mein ek kamaal ka idea hain, jisse saanp bhi mar jayega aur lathi bhi nahin tootega
[we have the perfect strategy in place, which will ensure that the snake will be killed and the rod will not be broken],’ the landlords replied. Lala looked at them incredulously.

Whenever they wanted to evict a house, Lala’s men now left only his stick at the desired site, as an ominous symbol. It always seemed to work, they found. Many tenants would almost immediately evict the house and leave the fear-inspiring stick behind.

Nobody before this had commanded such clout. This not only added to Lala’s fearsome reputation but also caught the attention of Haji Mastan. Mastan had always wanted a man who could pull off tricky things for him without violence. He sent a message to Karim Lala for a meeting. Karim Lala had heard a lot about Mastan but had never met him earlier.

They both met during Friday prayers at Grant Road mosque and proceeded to Taher Manzil, Karim Lala’s Baida Gully residence for lunch. For religious Muslims, lunch after Friday prayers should be sumptuous and rich. Karim Lala had laid down a scrumptious feast for Mastan. Both of them immediately struck a rapport over the meal, laughing and talking like old friends. After the meal, it was time to move to weightier issues.

‘Khan, saab,’ Mastan said, addressing Karim Lala, ‘it has been great talking to you like friends, but now, I have a business proposition for you.’ Karim Lala had been waiting for just such an opening, and he leaned forward, interested. ‘Of course, Mastan bhai, tell me. What do you have in mind?’ he asked.

Mastan slowly sipped some water before he started to talk, ‘As you know, I have quite a lucrative business going at the docks. But I am in need of some manpower, people who know what they are doing. I was wondering if you would be interested in providing me with men.’ Karim Lala’s eyes gleamed. ‘You intrigue me, Mastan bhai. But tell me, what would my men have to do?’ he enquired.