by Aabid Surti
SUFI
The invisible man of the underworld
By Aabid Surti
About The Author
National Award-winning author Aabid Surti has won critical acclaim for multiple creative talents. The list of his creative accomplishments befits half a dozen people rather than one individual.
As an author his output has been prolific, his oeuvre spanning fiction as well as non-fiction, travelogue as well as children’s literature. He has written around 80 books till date, which have been translated into almost every Indian language.
As a screenwriter he has been associated with directors like Raj Khosla and Raj Kapoor on film projects and as a playwright, he has penned seven plays.
An accomplished painter, he has held 16 exhibitions in India and abroad. In his early years, he invented an innovative technique called ‘mirror collage’ which won critical acclaim in Japan. In 1971, the Indian government commissioned a short film to showcase his creative work.
As a cartoonist, he created the lovable simpleton ‘Dabbuji’. The highly original and popular cartoon strip has been one of the longest-running comic strips in India, running without a break for over 30 years. Reprints of the original series continue to entertain millions in various languages. Dabbuji’s fan following includes Ex Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, singer Asha Bhosle and Osho.
Aabid has also created another popular comic book character, ‘Bahadur’, which achieved cult status in the 1970s.
In 1993, the Indian government conferred The President Award upon him. He lives in a quiet suburb of Mumbai and continues to explore painting, writing and meditation.
The title is shocking. So is the novel. If you can call it that. It is really more of a documentation of two youngsters of the ill-famed Dongri locality of Mumbai. Together they take you on a journey into the dark, depressing world of Muslim society, peeling off layer after layer…This is the ghetto where the sun’s rays never reach, where the struggle for survival begins in the cradle, where danger lurks around every corner.
This is the neighbourhood in which the author was raised during the golden period of gold smuggling. When Karim Lala was the supreme don, Haji Mastan was steadily moving up the ladder and Dawood Ibrahim played ‘gilli danda’ with the other children. What the author saw and experienced in the formative years of his life is reported here, uncensored, in vivid detail.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Chapter Thirty Seven
Chapter Thirty Eight
ABOUT THE BOOK
In the late Eighties, when I was in my fifties, I had been planning to write a part of my autobiography. I happened to meet Sufi (Iqbal Rupani) in a gathering at the Bandra mosque – the occasion was my cousin’s nikaah ceremony. As we got to know each other, and he talked about his fascinating past, it triggered an idea — why not write a jugalbandi instead of a single life sketch?
This book is a result of a series of relentless interviews and an investigation conducted over the course of two years (1989-90) into the golden period of gold smuggling. Originally written in Gujarati (1990), it appeared in Hindi (Musalman-1995) and Kannada (1996). Its Marathi translation was serialised in Mahanagar (2004), an evening newspaper. Mr. Nachiketa Desai, associate editor, Cyber India Online Ltd., did the first draft of the English translation. The next three drafts were done by the author, that is me. After passing through many hands and suggestions, the fifth version was edited by Ms. Shivani Tibrewala, a playwright and theatre director. The final edit was done by Rima Kashyap.
WHY THE TITLE ‘SUFI’ (the Muslim mystic)
When Iqbal first came to see me at my house in Bandra, we sat chatting for a while in the ‘drawing’ room. The topic was theology. To be precise, namaaz and yoga. After he left, my mother, who was resting inside and listening keenly to our conversation, came out and asked, “Who was that Sufi?” Naturally I was curious to know, “How did you guess he was a Sufi?” Her answer was, “He sounded like an enlightened man!” I had got the title for my book! I’m thankful to all my friends including Manisha Sethi, Shabnam Hashmi, Shugufta Jaffery, Seema Sud…and all those who keep me in their thoughts.
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL BY
Nachiketa Desai
Aabid Surti
Chapter I
Two boys grow up in the murky lanes of the infamous Dongri locality of Bombay. They have a common background and their circumstances too are similar. However, one is attracted to light while darkness engulfs the other. One turns out to be an artist while the other becomes an invisible member of the underworld.
One of them is Aabid Surti.
The other is Iqbal Rupani - ‘Sufi’.
Both studied in Dongri’s then renowned ‘Habib High School’. Both were favourite students of the distinguished teacher Sheikh Hasan, recipient of the coveted Padmashri award. Both harboured the same ambition-- to study and succeed in life.
The similarities do not end there. Both become adults. Neither is interested in marriage. They know it is difficult for struggling young men to meet the responsibilities of married life. However, adverse conditions compel them both into marriage. Their wives bear the same name. They even belong to the same clan.
Though we lived in the same locality, I do not recall us ever having met. Then suddenly, in March 1989, we met. I looked at him intently. He seemed very ordinary, like someone who could easily melt into a crowd.
He had curly hair, round, beady eyes covered by wire-framed spectacles; a neatly cropped moustache; a thin smile on his lips; clothes, spotless white shirt, white trousers and shoes that shone.
At first glance, he appeared to be a white-collar worker. However, his eyes, which spoke volumes, conveyed something different. I expressed a desire to meet him again. He invited me home, and thus began a series of rendezvous…
In short, we had remained strangers for years despite belonging to the same locality, same school and the same mosque. What would you call that? Destiny? Sitting on an easy chair on the terrace of his house, Sufi expressed the same sentiments casting his eyes upward:
“Aabidbhai, God has clearly said in the Holy Quran: Even the leaf of a tree does not move without His will. The God Almighty has decided the course for every living thing, man or animal. He has paved someone’s path with rose petals and someone else’s with thorns. A man may struggle hard to tread on a different path, but ultimately he will be compelled to follow the path written in his fate.”
The notorious smuggler Haji Mastan had echoed Sufi’s views in 1986 in an intervie
w to Anurag Chaturvedi, correspondent of ‘Ravivar’ (Hindi) magazine. Mastan had said: “If Allah desires, He can lift up a man; if He desires to cut him short, the man shall be cut short; if He desires to condemn a man, the man shall be condemned; if He desires to raise the man, the man shall attain heights.”
Before taking a peep into Sufi’s life, let us look at his home, his family and the locality in which he lived. Of course, I too grew up in the same neighborhood. Today, both of us stay in Bandra, an affluent suburb of Bombay. Back then, we lived at Dongri Char Nal near Bhindi Bazaar.
The scourge of smuggling and crime had already entered Dongri before Sufi’s birth. Liquor dens were flourishing in lanes and by-lanes. Addiction to narcotics like hashish and marijuana was also spreading fast.
This is the same locality from where the Khilafat movement was launched before independence. Maulana Mohammed Ali and Maulana Shaukat Ali, along with several leaders of the Congress, had led the Khilafat movement from here. Even today, the older generation identifies the four heritage buildings – Ibrahim, Sultan, Sharif and Kalyan mansion – as Khilafat Manzil. And Gandhiji had supported the Muslims in their cause.
Behind these four heritage buildings is the Kaisar Baug Hall from where many veteran leaders including Jinnah, Patel and Nehru had given the message of unity, time and again, to the nation. Those days, Dongri was the centre of the freedom struggle.
As has happened with Porbandar, the birthplace of Gandhiji, this once-venerated place has turned into a thriving center of all the vices found in the world today. Small and big racketeers began to sprout like mushrooms. Aziz Dilip (a Hindu converted to Islam and known by both his names) used to run a cycle shop and a transport business as a front. He was the owner of three liquor dens. Ayub Lala was the don of Foras Road near Bhindi Bazaar and used to operate a drug den for those addicted to hashish. A don called ‘Shankar Maratha’ ruled over Mazgaon and owned several liquor dens.
Before Sufi’s birth, even his father Hussain Ali had become a victim of this scourge. The reason? Like a venomous snake, liquor had wound its way from the streets into nearby homes. Hussain Ali was among the first to turn into a drunkard. Liquor became his life. The morning cup of tea would taste bitter to him if he had not taken a peg or two. He needed a full bottle during the day.
Hussain Ali was basically a good man. He was a devout Muslim, who offered namaaz regularly and had full faith in the Holy Quran and Allah. He used to abhor liquor. However, a time came when liquor entered the pores of his body, flowed through his veins and emerged like fire from his eyes.
What was his tragedy?
Says Sufi: “My father used to work as a clerk under an agent at the Ghadiyal Godi docks. It was lucrative work. There was the possibility of earning an extra buck by under invoicing the bags of dates imported from the Gulf countries. Sometimes, there would be contraband goods concealed inside the bags and the importer would grease the palms of the customs officer to smuggle the stuff. However, it was difficult for my father to indulge in such hanky-panky transactions. Then, my mother contracted tuberculosis.”
Those days, TB meant certain death. TB used to evoke the same kind of fear as the word cancer evokes today. People considered it a killer disease. Hussain Ali could not bear it. He took to drinking. He thought he would drown all his sorrows, all his pain in the stupor of liquor. But neither did his grief decrease, nor did his problems vanish.
It was not possible to meet the expenses of treating the killer disease with the meager income of a clerk. All his savings were washed away in settling the doctor’s bills. He had only two options: Stick to principles and let his wife wither away or accept the values of the changing times.
A similar situation had developed in my own family. My father, Ghulam Hussain, who had played with millions of rupees, was reduced to penury after my grandfather’s shipping venture ended in bankruptcy. One can imagine the state of mind of a person who, once stood in the ranks of billionaires, like the Tatas and Birlas of today, lived in a palatial house untouched by the shadow of sorrow like the young Buddha, and then suddenly finds himself penniless on the pavement.
He took up a job, did not like it and left it. He took up another job. It was not in his nature to be a minion. He left the job again. While he was struggling to support his family, he hit upon an idea. It was not a brilliant idea merely an ill-conceived one.
Continuing with his autobiography, Sufi says, "It was a dark monsoon night with pouring rain. My father, Hussain Ali, was sitting wide-awake in his 180 square foot room. He could not sleep and would remain tormented until the dilemma confronting him was not resolved.
Hussain Ali looked at his ailing wife. She was gazing at him. There was a flash of lightning. Hussain Ali saw death. He saw two angels of death in the corners of her eyes. As if both of them had come running straight from the graveyard ready to weigh her good and bad deeds.
Hussain Ali made his decision. Everything had become clear in that flash of lightning. He shed his old values just as a snake sheds its scales, and accepted new ones. He knew the customs officers. He knew the tricks that would get him the delivery of goods without paying the customs duty. He had never employed these ruses in the past. Now he started practicing them freely.
“Does it mean,” I asked Sufi to clarify, “that your father got involved in smuggling?”
“Absolutely.”
“Can we call him a smuggler?”
Sufi smiled behind his moustache. His smile always assumes an extra edge when he smiles behind his moustache. “Aabidbhai,” he asked simply, “Who is called a smuggler?”
The images of over 30 villains of Hindi films flashed before my eyes one after another. The faces were bloody, gruesome, scarred with stitches. Some looked like pirates while others Looked like characters from the Ramsay Brothers’ horror films. Essentially, every face was characterized by fear, terror and cruelty.
I was a bit confused on seeing these faces instead of getting an answer. I ventured a reply, “Smuggler means a person who does smuggling.”
“And, what is smuggling?”
“To bring contraband goods from other countries.”
Sufi shattered my illusion. “In the eyes of the law, smuggling means tax evasion-- to import or export goods without paying tax.”
“This means that anyone who evades tax can be called a smuggler.” Sufi continued: “Now you tell me, which trader in the world does not evade tax? If you concede the point then every trader is a smuggler. My father too had in him the genes of a trader. He too transacted goods without paying customs duty. What difference does it make if you call him a smuggler or by any other name?”
Within a short span of three years, Hussain Ali earned about a lakh rupees. His confidence increased. His wife not only recovered from TB but became pregnant as well. The 180-square-foot room turned into a haven for husband and wife. As the day of delivery came closer, Hussain Ali’s devotion to the God Almighty increased. And so did his addiction to the bottle.
Initially, he had started with just one peg. On returning home from the dock after a tiring day, he would take a peg, eat heartily and hit the sack. One bottle used to last him nearly 13 days. Now, one bottle was not enough for him for even a day.
Gul Banu, his wife, felt tormented from within but she did not have the heart to say anything to her husband. What could she say? That Islam decreed that drinking liquor was an immoral act? That namaaz and drinking cannot go together? Did he not know such fundamental facts that he needed to be told about them?
“What was the result?” I interjected.
“Quarrels,” Sufi answered in just one word.
Sufi’s mother was not highly educated. She had learned religion from the elders of the family and the clergy. To her, Islam viewed the worldly life in black and white – moral and immoral; good deed and bad deed; truth and falsehood. She evaluated every act of life in this manner. Had she ever, even for a fraction of a moment, thought beyond these divisions and tried to understand her hus
band’s inner feelings, she would have suffered less and come closer to him.
The flame of a lamp, when the oil is nearly exhausted, leaps for the last time before it finally dies out. Hussain Ali’s alcoholism was in its final stage. The more he strengthened his resolve to quit liquor, the more he drank it. Action and reaction are equal and opposite.
Defeated by life, my father, Ghulam Hussain too made a last ditch attempt. While Sufi’s father had turned to smuggling because of his wife’s killer disease, my father had turned to propitiating ghosts and spirits as the last resort to end his suffering from poverty and hunger.
In the end, he decided to embark upon a forty-day rite during which he would meditate and bring all the evil spirits under his control. It is said that a person who controls the evil spirits has magical powers. He can turn dust into gold by just blowing on it. If he places his hand on the forehead of a person on his deathbed, the person springs back to life.
He began chanting Islamic mantras. He engaged himself round-the-clock in namaaz, prayers and reading selected verses from the Quran. My mother was pregnant those days. Only a few days remained for my birth-- and my father’s success. Mother’s anxiety was steadily increasing.