Sufi - The Invisible Man of The Underworld

by Aabid Surti

  The struggle exhausted him. However, there was no other choice. He had a dream to fulfill. He also had to keep the kitchen fires burning. Suddenly he saw the fire going out and his dream coming apart in pieces. He saw the Link Bazaar store whirling, the ground beneath his feet slipping as he fell on the steps at the entrance of the departmental store.

  This was a mild heart attack. It was a forewarning of a clouded future. Yet, he could not afford to quit the Link Bazaar job. He did not have to. Hussain Ali was asked to leave.

  Iqbal was devoting full attention to his studies. He displayed vital signs of progress. “God will never pardon me if shortage of money were to come in the way of Iqbal’s studies.” This thought compelled Hussain Ali to look for another job.

  After searching for a few days he got work in an auto parts shop. Though the shop was close-by, the salary was meager. The only solace was that it would keep the kitchen running. At least his son would be able to complete his high school education.

  This job too did not last long. The new boss was quarrelsome. He would reprimand Hussain Ali for minor lapses. At times, he would even scold him for no reason. Hussain Ali could stand it no longer. He resigned.

  And so, there was a delay of two to three months in paying Iqbal’s school fees, which had always been paid on time earlier.

  One day, on seeing Iqbal disturbed, Ali asked him, “What’s the matter?”

  Iqbal looked at him. This was the same Ali whose nose he had punched. However, the incident was long forgotten and they had become friends.

  “Nothing,” he said in reply to Ali’s question, withholding the truth.

  “Why does your face look so sad?”

  He was reluctant to tell him but confessed…“Eid is approaching and I don’t have new clothes...” His voice trailed off before completing the sentence.

  “Oh, is that all?” Ali laughed and then offered a solution.

  In those years, the docks, where foreign ships used to anchor, were the training ground for the new entrants into the world of smuggling. Young men would buy imported watches, cigarette packets, and a bottle of scotch or a transistor radio and sell these to the Marwari traders in Dongri.

  Ali gave him a loan of 25 rupees to start with. However, after a few days of work Iqbal felt that there were more difficulties than income in this work. Besides, there was no guarantee that a ship would dock at the port every morning. Sometimes there would be no ship for the whole week.

  He consulted Ali again. Ali suggested a way out. “The work is kid stuff,” he told Iqbal. “You simply have to ferry bottles from one place to another. You will be paid one rupee for a bottle. If you ferry five bottles you will get five rupees and hundred rupees if you ferry hundred bottles.”

  “What do the bottles contain?”

  “Medicine.”

  I was listening with rapt attention to Sufi’s account of his childhood and upbringing. We were sitting on the terrace of his Bandra flat. “What kind of medicine?” I asked him.

  Before he could reply, his wife Masooma arrived with a glass of sherbet and a smile on her face. Several silent moments interrupted our conversaton.

  (I had fixed a day of the week to meet Sufi. We met every Thursday and sat on easy chairs on the open terrace. Mostly he talked, while I listened and took notes.)

  I finished the sherbet and kept the glass on the table next to us. Sufi began the conversation, replying to my last question. “Medicine means ethyl alcohol… used for making perfume, cologne water, eau de cologne etc. However, crooks used it differently.”

  “How?”

  “To make liquor, brandy in particular.”

  “How old were you then?”

  “I was in the sixth standard.”

  I found this issue important and so with a view to prodding him further, I said, “Your life wouldn’t have changed if the occasion of Eid had not come!”

  “No,” Sufi hastened to add, “This was just an excuse. The truth was that I had to pay my school fees to be able to continue my studies. Besides, I forgot to tell you that my mother had delivered two more children after my birth. Both of them were younger than me and for them Eid held a lot of importance.”

  There was one difficulty in earning one rupee a bottle: Those days, a hulk named Moghul used to sell a bottle of ethyl alcohol near the Moghul Masjid for six rupees and Iqbal did not have the money to buy even one bottle.

  Ali solved this problem too. He took Iqbal to a Marwari shop. Ali was three years older than Iqbal. He had been in touch with this Marwari for the last four years. His personal guarantee secured Iqbal a loan of sixty rupees to enable him to buy six bottles at a daily interest of ten percent.

  Ali took him to a dark room in the basement of a narrow building in a lane behind the Children’s Home. Iqbal saw a night lamp spreading a dim light in the room.

  There were many bottles around and as for furniture, there was a sagging cot, a cupboard and a few articles of daily wear dangling from nails on the wall. Moghul was sitting on the cot with one leg bent from the knee, smoking a bidi.

  “Chacha,” Ali said by way of introduction. “This friend of mine is good in studies and great in fighting.”

  “Is that so?”

  “One day he had hit me so hard that I had a black eye for a whole week.”

  Then Moghul cared to look at Iqbal who was standing quietly in his khaki half-pant, a half-sleeved white shirt tucked in. He had short hair, beady eyes and sunken cheeks. His face was taut. His body was thin like a wire, ‘Single Pasli’ (single wire) in local Dongri parlance. He wore canvas shoes.

  “Have you brought money?” Moghul finally said after sizing him up from top to bottom.

  Iqbal took out six ten-rupee notes from the pocket of his half-pant and put them before him. This was the beginning of a new career. He had the full support of Ali. Ali had given him the addresses of two liquor dens where he could sell the stuff. One was in Dongri, the other was at Mazgaon.

  “Ali”, Iqbal said after putting the bottles in a bag, “Why have you passed on your lucrative job to me?”

  “Because you deserve it.”

  “What will you do now?”

  He was frank. “I ‘ve been thinking of giving it up since long!”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve joined Mastan’s gang.”

  Iqbal sold five bottles each to both the liquor dens. He earned a profit of ten rupees. He paid six rupees to the Marwari towards one day’s interest. He earned four rupees, which was his net profit. In a month, he could earn one hundred and twenty rupees at the rate of four rupees a day.

  He returned the principal amount of the loan to the Marwari trader the next month. He spent about twenty rupees on his younger brothers. They did not have proper clothes or shoes.

  I interrupted Sufi and asked, “You were doing a job while studying in the sixth standard?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What was the school timing?”

  “Ten to five.”

  “Then, when did you find time to deliver the bottles?”

  “After school.”

  Iqbal would come home straight after five. He would have tea and snacks and then go out on the pretext of playing cricket with friends. He would then make a dash from Munda Galli to Moghul’s room.

  Moghul was quite pleased with him. This boy, who had started out with ferrying ten bottles a day, was now ferrying forty bottles in two rounds. In the first round, he would carry twenty bottles in a bag and deliver them to Aziz Dilip’s liquor den at Dongri. In the second round, he would carry another twenty bottles and walk to Mazgaon. After delivering bottles to Shankar Maratha’s den it would be eight in the night by the time he returned home.

  In short, Iqbal’s daily income had now become forty rupees. But, he never flaunted his money. He had not let even his father get a hint. However, when he got new clothes for his two younger brothers for Eid, Hussain Ali got suspicious.

  “Where did you get so much money?” he asked.

/>   Iqbal told the truth, “A friend of mine has taught me how to sell bottles.”

  “What bottles?”

  “Medicine.”

  “No liquor bottles?” “No,” he shook his head.

  The talk ended. However, when Hussain Ali came to know that his son had begun to shoulder the responsibility of meeting the expenses of his brothers, he was baffled.

  This time, he asked his wife, “Gul Banu, is it true?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Then, it can’t be medicine.”

  “Yes, it is,” asserted Gul Banu.

  “How do you know?”

  “One day, I too had some doubt. The next day, Iqbal showed me a bottle. I opened the cork and smelt it ...”

  “Alright, I would like to smell one myself too.”

  She was upset. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “Are you afraid to face the truth?” Hussain Ali challenged.

  “Yes,” she said, keeping her emotions in check. “You are sitting idle at home for the last six months. You are not earning a single paisa. My son is working hard to make both ends meet. You don’t want him to live in peace. How will we run the kitchen then?”

  Gul Banu’s last sentence carried weight and was beyond Hussain Ali’s ability to counter. His son was meeting the expenses of the entire household. He felt a twinge of sadness at his own plight. His life was wracked with pain and guilt.

  Iqbal returned home late in the evening. He was very tired. After having his dinner, he sat in a corner to do his homework. Gul Banu had gone downstairs to fetch water. Due to lack of pressure, water would not go up to the first floor. People had to go down to the ground floor with pots to fetch water almost every day.

  Hussain Ali called his son to him. He put his hand on his head lovingly, found out all that was needed, then told him some home truths with increasing melancholy. “My dear child, there are two ways of making money: One that God approves of and the other that God doesn’t approve of. When I was at the docks, I was doing work that God did not permit and I am doing penance till date.”

  “What do I do, Papa?” Iqbal lifted his head and looked straight into his eyes. Behind that one single sentence lurked a hundred hungry questions… Papa, what will happen to me? What will happen to my studies? What will happen to my brothers?

  Hussain Ali did not reply. He had to find the answer himself.

  Iqbal found the same answer that I had found at his age. He used to live in a room at Abbasi Manzil. I used to live in a room in Sultan Mansion. Both the buildings were in Dongri, and both were in a similar condition, like wrecked ships that could sink any time.

  My father had lost his mind and was bed-ridden. Almost half my uncle Mohammed Hussain’s salary used to go towards his treatment. He was ill, frail and needed care.

  When there was no improvement in his condition even after changing several doctors, we resorted to visiting Dargahs (mausoleums of saints). If someone said a particular Dargah had the reputation of curing extreme cases of madness, my mother would take my father there. If someone said that a particular shrine in a particular village was known for miracles, we would board a train and take my father there. We even went as far as Jaawra village near Ratlam.

  These excursions and change of climate would have some effect on my father’s health and raise our hopes; however, such improvements would last only for a few days after which he would remain confined to the same bed, same room and same walls. Sometimes, he would be staring at the ceiling and sometimes at the walls.

  My mother took up work in some more households. Her daily routine was the most rigorous in our family. After attending to her own household chores early in the morning, she would get busy with work in neighbouring homes. She would wash someone’s utensils, grind someone’s condiments, wash someone’s load of clothes under the common tap of the chawl or deliver the rationed milk to someone’s house. After a day’s labour, she would earn around five rupees.

  There was the question of my younger brother’s education and my own. I started selling chikki (sweets made from nuts and jaggery), peppermint and sweet and sour candies. I used to sit with my cookie-candy box on the pavement of the main road of Dongri at a safe place.

  Iqbal used to emerge out of Munda Galli, come to Pala Galli and sit near the Khoja Masjid. His box used to contain berries, amla and other wild fruits besides candies.

  Years have flown past since then. However, Sufi has not forgotten those days of struggle and his childhood friends who had stood by him, particularly Kadar, who had suggested the idea of putting up a shop on the roadside.

  In the last twenty years, Sufi has transacted business worth millions of rupees; fat bundles of bank notes have passed from one hand to another. Today, while he lives in the terrace flat of ‘Zarin Lodge’ in Bandra with all modern amenities, Kadar continues to sit at the stall in Pala Galli.

  “Whenever I go to Dongri, I instinctively remember him,” said Sufi, “And, I sit with him for a while to chat.”

  “If you wish, you can lift him from the pavement and put him up in a palace,” I commented.

  “True,” he said, “Sometimes, even I feel the same.”

  I lost my patience, “Then why don’t you?”

  “He wears the shirt of a carefree person. He sits cheerfully on the road throughout the day. He returns home in the evening after earning just enough for his bare requirements. He eats his evening meal and sleeps contentedly. Sorrow has not affected his life until today. I don't want to snatch away his happiness by making him money conscious.” The thought was lofty.

  If we peep into the life of Haji Mastan, we will find that he too had gone through a similar situation. He too had begun his career selling chikkis and sweet and sour peppermints.

  In a way, Iqbal and I were fortunate. Both of us had a house to live in. Mastan used to live in a hut near Musafirkhana. He used to study in the Fatimabai School near Crawford Market. He was originally from Rameshwar. Our mother tongue was Gujarati, his was Tamil.

  I had purchased some fun-filled booklets written by Golibar, a humorist from Ahmedabad and about a dozen other children’s books from a waste-paper vendor with the objective of making some extra money. I would take these along with my textbooks to school and lend them to my classmates for a paisa per day.

  Mastan got a job with a Malbari roadside tea vendor to earn a little extra money. He would serve ‘outdoor’ customers-- deliver tea in small glasses to nearby shopkeepers and offices and daydream during his spare time, sitting on a bench.

  His eyeballs would be transfixed whenever he saw a passing car. It was his ambition to drive around the city in his own car. For the present, he roamed around bare foot. He worked hard and earned little at the tea stall.

  He soon left the tea stall, quit school and came down to the docks. Here, children were employed to clean up and paint the interiors of the boiler. These boilers were so small that it was impossible for a grownup man to get inside them and do the job. Mastan became adept in this work.

  As he grew older, his size increased. The size of the boilers remained the same. He needed to find a new job but, for that, he did not have to leave the docks. He became a coolie. He was given a badge from the Customs department. Number twenty-three.

  By the time Iqbal was selling chikkis by the roadside, Mastan had already plunged into gold smuggling. He had fulfilled his sole dream of driving around Bombay city in his own car.

  Iqbal too tried hard to increase his income. Abbasi Manzil in which he lived was a three-storey building. Due to the low pressure of water, taps in the rooms on the two upper floors always remained dry.

  Iqbal started fetching water during the night for the tenants residing on the upper floors. His days were divided into three shifts: School in the morning, roadside shop in the evening, fetching water at night.

  He would fill pots with water from the tap on the ground floor, climb the stairs, and fill the drums of the tenants on the second and third floors and then climb down once aga
in to the ground floor. He would carry thirty to forty pots of water everyday and earn around three rupees a day.

  “Sufi, your father was a heart patient. So, one can understand why he couldn’t help you. But, what about your mother?” I asked him, unable to restrain myself.

  “She was a TB patient and had outlived her prognosis,” he clarified. “Besides, she was not keeping as good health as before.”

  Seeing little Iqbal climbing up and down the stairs carrying pots of drinking water on his head was a heart-wrenching experience for both his parents. They watched him helplessly and silently. They could not find any other solution. It was particularly painful for Hussain Ali to remain a silent spectator. His silence was weighed down with this extra burden and the many questions it raised. Had he committed a mistake by asking his son to give up the path that God despised, and to tread the path that God favoured?

  Exhausted by the evening, Iqbal was sitting in his room. He had yet to complete his homework and help his younger brothers with their own, when Ali and Moghul entered through the open door.