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It was this area that was going to turn Varda into Varda Bhai. The geography of Dharavi, Sion, Koliwada, and Antop Hill was the greatest advantage for the illicit liquor trade with nothing but hutments everywhere. In fact, even the police found it difficult to enter and patrol the area. The poorest people along with illegal migrants had their address in Antop Hill and Dharavi in those days. Each boasted of FIRs as one would about awards.

Men would be ridiculed if they were caught in silly offences. With the help of the local network and bribes to the police, the trade made way to bars in Bombay. Varadarajan started gaining entry into the trade when it was still in its early days. The area was mostly occupied by non-Brahmin Tamilians who operated and maintained the bhattis furnace in khaadis marsh lands.

The number of bhattis ran into hundreds, with each one having a capacity of making around litres of concentrated hooch each night. He also identified similar pockets across central Bombay and even moved the production of illicit network to Sion- Koliwada, Dharavi, Chembur, Matunga, and some other areas to create a stronger, tighter network. The logistics of work those days were very nominal. The trade, mostly active after midnight, would consist of a few who knew how to mix liquor, and another set of people who provided the security cover and kept vigil.

The next set-up was of foot soldiers who, along with retired cops, worked in the nights round the week to provide liquor to many small shops across the city, especially close to the access points of the city.

These carriers, ironically are by and large from the ranks of retired or suspended police personnel who have switched sides because of the lure of money. These are transported in gunny-bags, car trunks and other innocuous places. Its function was to intercept police vehicles which would suddenly be blocked by a car whose ignition had conveniently failed.

And slowly but surely, Varda Bhai was transforming from just another illicit liquor producer into a big don. People started pouring into the city in groups, especially from southern India—Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala— and with each day the slums lined across the central region began to grow. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Varadarajan, in a small way, had much to do in making Dharavi the biggest slum space in Asia.

Such was the allure of his might, that people started working blindly for him. Press reports during the sixties peg his trade of illicit liquor to around 12 crore rupees a year.

In those years, that was a huge footprint considering the clandestine nature of the trade. The aura of his power had engulfed not only his trade but also the psyche of the people around him. An Antop Hill Police Station diary entry records a very sketchy detail about a man from Uttar Pradesh who went missing.

He lived with his wife and two children at one of the first floor corridor-houses in Antop Hill. His name is still registered under the missing list at the Antop Hill Police Station records. However, as was widely reported in several newspapers at the time, his wife had another story to tell: she was adamant that the police was very handsomely paid to keep mum about the whole incident, she left the city soon after.

Varda, however, knew too well that he needed to be very far-sighted in his approach in handling the network that chose to function under his name.

While he handicapped the intelligence network—as bribes ensured that the informers in the backstreets were kept satisfied—he also ensured that the other end was well oiled. The rate for police protection for the addas [where hooch was sold in public] was Rs 5, per adda. Each police station had on an average 75 to addas in its area. The economics worked at 10 rupees per glass for diluted hooch, which means anywhere around 1 crore rupees a month.

He also divided his work area-wise, and let individuals from each local area handle their own business, making the areas more work-efficient while completely eliminating ego hassles. It was not long before Varda slowly edged out rivals in the trade to the point of achieving a complete monopoly. It was also during these early days that he started getting cheap migrant labour into the city. Slowly, his men started grabbing government land and allocating space to the new entrants for a price and with that, south Indians began to dot the cotton mill-dominated central Bombay of Dadar, Sion Matunga, Dharavi,and Wadala.

Although Varda was never directly involved, he was aware that his men were pouring profits into this very vicious trade. That is where we would like to believe that he was equally involved. Innocent girls were brought from poverty-stricken areas in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and were left in the care of eunuchs for a few days.

The eunuchs would follow a certain initiation system whereby initially they would lure the girls with the money they would earn by selling themselves. If their sweet talk did not work, force would be applied. Houses in Antop Hill and Dharavi became hotspots for this flesh trade and though Varda Bhai was never seen at the forefront of the business, he certainly was a benefactor of the trade.

The big share of the pie was still in gold smuggling with the business tilted to the side of Muslim dons who had the right contacts in Arabia. One of these was Haji Mastan. But the burning ambition to achieve more still remained. So, once when in the course of O conversation his collaborator Bakhiya told him that he should first consider becoming Bambai ka Baadshah before venturing towards Gujarat, Mastan was badly stung.

To the up and coming smuggler, such a blatant dismissal was a slap in the face. He made up his mind to take over the city but he knew he could not accomplish this alone.

He needed the help of powerful musclemen to reach where he wanted to. Varda seemed to be the perfect man for the job. For, while Varda was a don based in central Bombay, he had the clout to get things done all across the city.

Mastan was waiting for an opportunity to befriend Varda. What followed was a strange twist of fate: it would seem as though destiny had conspired to get these two men together. Varda was arrested for stealing antennae from the customs dock area. The consignment was meant for a top politician in the Union ministry. Initially, customs officers and the cops remained clueless about the mastermind behind the theft.

However, a tip-off led them to pick up Varda from his den in Dharavi. The captured Varda was told by the police that if he refused to tell them the whereabouts of the consignment they would be forced to unleash the third degree on him, as it was their neck on the line.

According to this possibly apocryphal story, as Varda was mulling over the threat in the night in the loneliness of the Azad Maidan lockup, he saw an affluent looking man, dressed in a white suit approaching him. The man was smoking a cigarette and exuded a certain calmness.

The man walked up to the iron bars, and not a single one of the cops on duty stopped him. But ironically, the two were as different as chalk and cheese.

While Mastan was known for his suave ways, Varda exuded the aura of a ruthless ruffian. Mastan walked very close to Varda and surprised him by greeting him in Tamil. Varda was taken aback for a moment—both with the greeting in Tamil and the choice of words. No one had even spoken to Varda in a civil manner ever since he had been dumped in jail.

So the irony of the greeting appeared starker. Of course it was being used partly because Mastan was using their common language so the policemen would not understand what they were saying; as he had a business offer for Varda, he could not take the risk of the police smelling an unholy alliance.

He could never imagine Mastan being the spokesperson for the customs and the police. I deal in gold and silver. I am making an offer to you which no wise man can refuse.

Return the antennae and be my partner in the gold business. Mastan had said so much in such few words. He not only derided Varda and made his suspicions look small, he had also demonstrated his own stature and offered him a partnership in his business. At this juncture, Haji Mastan was the moneyed guy, the man with the pull, whereas Varda was still to make an indelible mark anywhere.

So, when Mastan proposed the alliance, it was an offer Varda could not refuse. Varda, who had seen enough struggle in his life, must have thought that this was his only chance of walking away from certain torture and humiliation. Policemen in the lock-up still remember that strong handshake of two very different looking men—one in a sophisticated suit and polished boots smoking an expensive cigarette and the other in a white vest, veshti dhoti , and slippers.

Customs officials got their consignment and saved their jobs, Mastan got his partner to help him achieve his new-found dreams. Customs officials kept their word with Mastan and released Varda.

As Varda returned to his den, people assumed he would be in a nasty mood and would unleash a bout of terror to show he still ruled the roost. His men thought he would be eager to prove that his detention should not be misconstrued as a sign of his waning power.

Instead, Varda returned a happier man. He immediately called for a celebration. Even his close aides were a bit baffled at this strange behaviour. What also surprised them was the fact that Varda had actually agreed to return the consignment of antennae to the customs officials. It was nothing but a loss of face and revenue. But instead of displaying his foul temper, Varda ordered a public feast for his people.

They did not know that Varda had stooped to conquer. He might have lost the consignment, but he had struck a bigger deal. He had always wanted an alliance with the Muslim mafia, but he had managed to get a partnership on a platter without having to work for it at all. Earlier, at the jail, Mastan and Varda had struck up the deal, simply by a few well chosen words in Tamil, and mostly through eye contact, the perfect tacit contract.

After his release, Varda spent another week or two laying low, assimilating the fact that he, a small time crook, was now muscleman for the powerful, rising Haji Mastan. Varda knew he could never penetrate into the smuggling trade, as the margins and the territory already came marked. This was closest to the profitable smuggling business. A shrewd Varda saw an opportunity in stealing legally imported goods and passing them off as smuggled goods.

For this he had to tap his operatives at the Bombay Port Trust Docks. It was a very clandestine and calculated scam that took shape.

Cheap migrant labour from Thirunelveli found work in the docks and soon many networks were formed and strengthened. The goods would be scattered around the docks by labourers who were recruited by Varda. The importer would file a missing complaint and get insurance for the value lost, and the goods would come under the custody of Varda, who along with the importer would share the insurance amount and release the cargo to the importer for half the price.

Initially, importers complained of the crime, but when they realised that they could get the cargo at half the price by giving a share of the insurance to Varda, even they fell in. So they became more alert to ensure that such thefts do not occur. To counter this, Varda came up with a completely new strategy. Meanwhile, the authorities at the port trust and the customs were paid off handsomely by Varda. The system was very calculated and showed the extent to which Varda could have his way.

Even with crores of rupees at stake, there was no bloodshed, nobody lost his head, since Varda was intelligent enough to know how to plug every level right from the steamship agents who got to know if the cargo was worth stealing to the last leg, where the importer was willing to part with his share. Varda had the pulse of the crowd. He was always available at his house, where people crowded around him with their problems. The swelling crowd and settlers in pockets like Dharavi, Chembur, Matunga, Antop Hill, Koliwada, and far suburbs made for a strong vote bank.

Being a religious man, Varda began spending lavishly on the Ganesh pandals outside Matunga station. With his stature, grew the size and opulence of the pandal. Many celebrities would come to the pandal to pray.

It is rumoured that even Jaya Bachchan had prayed here for the life of her superstar husband Amitabh, when he was injured during the filming of the movie Coolie.

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 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. 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. While learning the tricks of the trade from Mastan, his fortunes grew. 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.

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. What is known is that it was approximately in the thirties. Mumbai was known N 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.

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. Uneducated and unskilled, Karim Khan decided to be self-employed, as he could not think of any other way to earn a decent living.

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.

Karim Lala was not the only Pathan who lent money and lived off the interest. 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. 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 sq feet tenements were given out for a nominal amount of 5, to 10, rupees. At times, the rooms were given out for 9 to 99 years in a lease as low as 20, 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 10th 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.

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. 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.

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.

Lala looked at them incredulously. 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. 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. 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. What do you have in mind? 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. But tell me, what would my men have to do?

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. Will there be any violence involved?

He knew he had Karim Lala hooked. But what do I get out of this, Mastan bhai? So, how about we decide on our shares on a consignment basis? 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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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. 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 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. They had little choice but to prove themselves. 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. 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 , he continued with astonishing speed. His breathing got heavy when he crossed , but he never once slowed down. When he finally stopped at , 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. 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.

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. 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.

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.

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. Nobody had the guts to snub him the way Ibrahim Bhai did.

Baashu found out that Ibrahim Bhai, for all his popularity and the respect accorded him by society, was close only to a handful of people. One of these friends was a small-time racketeer called Abdul Rahim, with whom Ibrahim had grown up.

A short puny man, Rahim was used to selling off smuggled goods from Mastan or Baashu to big markets and in sales hubs like Mohatta Market and Manish Market, earning a commission on the sales. Rahim was well-known in smuggling circles and Ibrahim Bhai often got him out of tricky situations. Rahim and Ibrahim Bhai were childhood friends and were known for being thicker than blood brothers. Bashu learnt that Rahim did not have a steady income.

Rahim was the type who was flush if he had just handled a smuggling consignment and then went through a lean patch subsequently, once a lull hit. Baashu summoned him and asked him to work for a fixed salary of rupees as his manager. For Rahim, it was a princely sum and he lost no time in accepting the offer. Something about Rahim immediately endeared him to Baashu and they both began working together.

Although Baashu had hired Rahim to get Ibrahim bhai on his payroll, he soon realised that Rahim himself was a versatile man. Rahim increased his profits manifold with his sharp business acumen. Soon Rahim became indispensable to Baashu and an integral part of his think-tank. With changing circumstances, almost everyone forgot that Baashu wanted Ibrahim to pay obeisance to him. But destiny has an indelible memory. I will definitely recommend this book to non fiction, mystery lovers.

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