Sufi - The Invisible Man of The Underworld

by Aabid Surti

  One day, while I was walking past the nearby Cama hospital, the same voice echoed in my ears. I was going to the Bori Bunder railway station but I sat down to listen. His lecture was very impressive but I did not get even a glimpse of hope for the peace of mind I was looking for.

  The next week I bumped into Girish Vaidya, the director of parallel cinema ‘Anant’ and ‘Aakrant’. Before I could exhibit my empty wallet, he said in style, “Aabid, I’ve made special arrangements for you to have free food for at least ten days.”

  I thought he was joking. Yet, I asked, “how?”

  He wrote an address on a slip of paper and handed it over to me. The address was that of Vipassana camp. In the initial stage, these meditation camps used to be held in a dharamshala near the Gol Deval, a circular temple.

  Lifting my eyes from the slip of paper, I asked again, “Who organizes these camps?”

  “A Marwari.”

  I was amused.

  Hindi films have created a stereotypical image in our minds of people from different castes and communities, wittingly or unwittingly. For example, if there is a Parsee character in the film, he would invariably be shown as a madcap; whereas in reality, the Parsees are known as an enterprising, successful business community.

  Similarly, when a Marwari character appears on the silver screen, he is mostly depicted as Shylock the Jew, the bloodsucker. Therefore, it was not surprising that I took some time to ingest the idea of a Marwari in a spiritual role.

  I decided there was no harm marching into a camp that offers free food for ten days. Besides, I had been interested in theology since my childhood. Readers already know that my father had lost his mind trying to control the realm of the spirits.

  I went to the camp carrying one pair of clothes. I met the Vipassana guru, Shri Satyanarayan Goenka, for the first time in my life. His simplicity, his smile, his truth touched me. I realized during the final day of meditation that a deafening cascade of hidden truth was pouring upon me, I was swimming in a spiritual ocean.

  When I emerged from the camp after ten days, I was a changed person. The endless chatter had stilled in the quiet of the silent mind. All the filth of mind had got washed clean. Envy and anger had melted away. Compassion, hitherto lying dormant, had surfaced. Everything was clear before my eyes. Now I had a new vision to solve my predicaments.

  The very same problems that created tension and knocked me off on the road were no more a burden. I had more than one answer to life’s every problem. For example, Suraiyya’s memory was so vivid and haunting that it had become an anathema. Now, I willingly returned to it sometimes to refresh myself.

  The friends who used to turn their face and slip away into the by lanes, slowly started coming back to me. The reason was the change in my attitude after ten days of rigorous meditation.

  Earlier, I used to curse friends who did not give me a loan. I was no more the object of their repulsion. My aggressiveness had given way to my smile. And where there is a smile, there is love. At peace with the world, I started preparing for my fifth painting exhibition.

  Let us now look at Iqbal’s debit and credit accounts. As a trader, he had supplied prawns worth crores of rupees to Britannia in seven months and made a neat profit of twenty-one lakhs. However, after the season was over, the production of prawns dwindled and their rates skyrocketed.

  As per the deal with the company, he could not raise the price and to fulfill his obligation of supplying ten tons of prawns, he had to buy at twice or thrice the market rate.

  A written contract did not mean anything for Iqbal. Had he wanted, he could have torn the stamped paper to pieces and walked out; but what about the word of honour? This was the first lesson he had learnt from the underworld. Until date, he has not gone back on his word.

  Holes started appearing in the profit. In the end, he sold his office, the car he had received from DK as part of his partnership deal, the new Ambassador car and Dagdu’s tempo.

  Prawns gobbled away all that they had earned from the sea. Both of them became jobless again. Iqbal still had a source of income, Rs.4,000 monthly as rent, from the steam launch Al Kabir. As for Dagdu, his world fell apart, he was consumed by grief.

  “Boss!” he croaked in sad tune, “Your partnership has ruined me.”

  “Sometimes it happens in business.”

  It was a Friday, one of those late June afternoons when all the trees come into leaf, the air smells of monsoon, birds sing of rain and the peacocks dance.

  Despite having left Dongri and taken up a new residence in Bombay’s Khar suburb, Iqbal used to come to Dongri every Friday without fail to offer Namaaz in the Khoja Masjid. Today, he was sitting with Dagdu in Café Naaz after the prayer.

  “I wouldn’t have even pissed on that fishy business had I known it before,” Dagdu continued, lighting up a bidi. “How happy I was driving the tempo. By evening, I’d a hundred rupee note in my pocket. After taking care of other expenses, at least I was getting a bottle of hooch to drink!”

  “Whatever God does, it’s for our own good,” Iqbal consoled him. “Tell me the truth, haven’t you come down to a quarter from a full bottle?”

  “What if I don’t get even a peg tomorrow?” he expressed his fear. “On top of that, I’ve to listen to the obscenities of wife number two.” He used to call his mistress wife number two. “The original one is loyal, but this bitch does not allow me to sleep in peace. Do something, boss, else – ”

  “What can I do?”

  “What we are born to do...”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “The gold market is picking up again,” he reminded Iqbal taking a short pull from his bidi. “Tapories are seen moving about Zaveri Bazaar with pockets full of gold biscuits.”

  “Who has stopped you?” Iqbal got irritated, “Go, join them!”

  “Boss,” he cooled down. “To be honest, I don’t feel like working with anyone but you.”

  “Give me a week’s time.” Iqbal got up. “I’ll find a way out.”

  “Legal or…?”

  “Dagdu, please forget about the forbidden ways,” thus reminding assertively he came out of Café Naaz. Out of the blue, customs officer Khan’s car came and stopped before him.

  “Get in, sonny!” Khan smiled, opening the front door.

  Iqbal had not committed any crime. As it is, he was out of work. He thought, perhaps Khan wanted information regarding some crime. He coolly entered and sat besides Khan.

  Dagdu crushed the bidi under his foot and watched wide-eyed. The car started and headed towards Colaba. “Don’t you want to know where am I taking you?” Khan asked, noticing Iqbal calm and quiet.

  “Sir, I’ve just had lunch after offering the Friday prayers. So it’s obvious that you are not taking me to a hotel.”

  “Of course not. Please note, I’m taking you in to take out every morsel you have eaten.”

  He could not believe it. “You have to be joking.”

  Driving with one hand, with the other Khan opened the brief case kept on the seat and took out two sheets of paper. “Read it.”

  Iqbal glanced over both the pages and protested vociferously. “This...is a white lie.”

  “Is Altaf not your colleague?” Khan asked.

  When Iqbal was into gold smuggling there had been a mixed bunch of more than a dozen fellows, including Dagdu and Michael, working under him. Of these a few, who felt intimidated by his strong personality, felt uncomfortable working under him. Altaf, the guy with the drooping mustache, was one of those who loathed his guts. After the gold smuggling stopped, the entire gang had dispersed.

  Altaf started bootlegging independently by using air-parcels with Lala’s backing. He had taken two of the airport officials into confidence. No one suspected anything for six months. In the seventh month, the government got wind of it. He got trapped in the customs’ net.

  Iqbal had nothing to do with him or his racket. Yet, in his confessional statement before the customs, Altaf had involved him. Ac
cording to his admission, Iqbal was the ring-leader of the air-parcel racket. Watches worth lakhs of rupees had been smuggled into the country under his guidance.

  “It’s true that this weirdo worked with me a year ago,” Iqbal admitted. “But I’ve nothing to do with this air-parcel racket.”

  “What are you doing these days?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How is it that all your colleagues got busy and you are still looking for work?”

  “Sir…” he was going to explain—I’ve just retired from the prawn business… when the car stopped opposite the headquarters of the DRI.

  Getting out of the car, Khan said, “We’ll discuss the matter upstairs.”

  He walked ahead, holding Iqbal’s wrist. Across them was the Hotel Waldorf. The entire floor above it was occupied by the DRI of the customs. Khan took him to the same room in the office, in which he had been interrogated once. That time Singh was with him and the duo had successfully hoodwinked both Khan and Rustomji.

  It was different today. Today, he was innocent and had been brought here for no fault of his own. Today, Khan was not going to exonerate him. He was going to take revenge for every game of trickery Iqbal had played in the past.

  Iqbal noticed that there was the same bench-like table and a chair in the room. Khan made him sit on the table and began with a threat. “Iqbal, none of your gimmicks is going to work today. It is in your interest that you confess everything.”

  “But, Sir…”

  “I won’t tell you again.”

  “Should I confess despite being innocent?” he asked. “You know well, there is never a loophole in whatever job I do. Else, I’d have been caught years ago.”

  “Alright! Bring in Altaf,” he yelled at someone behind the door.

  Iqbal thought there was no reason for Altaf to involve him. Maybe, Khan was playing a cat-and-mouse game as usual to trap him. However, this was a remote possibility.

  As soon as Altaf entered along with Rustomji, Khan asked him, “Do you know him?”

  The weirdo looked at Iqbal. Their eyes met. He immediately looked down and opened his mouth, “He is Iqbal.”

  “Since when do you know him?”

  “We were together in gold smuggling.”

  “After that?”

  “We switched over to other rackets after the slump in the gold market.”

  “What exactly did you start?”

  “Smuggling through air-parcels.”

  “Under whom?”

  “Iqbal, Sir.”

  Iqbal was horrified. He was now sure that this was not a part of Khan’s ploy. Altaf had confirmed before Iqbal what he had stated in his statement. But why? What was the perfidious purpose of humiliating him?

  Suddenly he recalled – Several years ago, during a midnight crossing, their steam launch had been illuminated twice under the search light of a naval ship. Iqbal’s colleagues had become nervous. They were preparing to jump from the launch and swim to safety. Altaf was at the forefront.

  If he had taken the initiative, it would have emboldened the others. So Iqbal had pulled him down from the brim of the launch and punched him hard. That had broken his nose. His drooping moustache dripped blood. At the time he had swallowed the insult but had vowed to avenge himself one day. That day was today.

  Khan sniggered. Rustomji brought three peons from outside. All four of them made Iqbal lie down on the table with his face down. He was tied with a rope. Khan began hitting his soles with a rod.

  “Tell me,” Khan would repeat the same question with each blow, “are you ready to confess?” Iqbal too declared his innocence after each blow. In half an hour his soles blew up like a balloon, but he did not budge.

  “Khan!” Rustomji finally pleaded, “The boy is screaming hoarse that he was into the sea-food business of prawns. He is also giving Britannia’s phone number. What is the harm in confirming it?”

  Khan too thought it proper to give it a try. Throwing away the rod, he went out with Rustomji. The three peons stood guard at the door. Iqbal lay on the table like a mute animal writhing in pain. In a few moments, he made a resolution – He had been implicated in the smuggling of wristwatches; he would now actually start smuggling watches just to teach Khan a lesson.

  After fifteen minutes, Rustomji, and not Khan, approached him with a cup of tea and sandwich. Iqbal slowly turned and sat upright.

  “You are really fortunate!” Rustomji informed him, “Khan had a talk with Mr. Karkare. Had he not supported your statement, you would have certainly been rotting behind bars for years. Come, have tea...”

  With one stroke of his hand, Iqbal smashed away the tea cup, the saucer and the plate of sandwiches.

  Chapter 35

  Iqbal had shared a certain secret with customs officer Khan – whenever he started an illicit business, he never left a hole in it. His blueprint was watertight. Even in ventures other than smuggling, his fertile brain is excellently productive. It was he who had rescued DK’s man Hamid from the gallows.

  If an accused is sentenced to a certain number of years of imprisonment and he does not want to go to jail, Sufi has a solution. He is also able to envisage one within minutes and suggest legal ways to minimise ‘tax payment’ (the colloquialism for prison sentence) through technical maneuvering.

  Those days, the government had imposed a 240 per cent customs duty on the import of stainless steel. Understandably, a rise in customs duty leads to increase in price. And, when the price increases, it boosts smuggling. The nexus between the government and the criminals has been in existence since years.

  One day a trader friend came to Sufi and gave him a proposal: “If you agree to smuggle stainless steel sheets, I’m prepared to buy them all.” Iqbal had gone through the new budget in the morning paper. (He doesn’t like to miss out on anything.) He had studied the details of its provisions. He smiled and said, “You don’t have to break the law for that.”

  “I’ll be ruined if I pay 240 per cent duty.”

  “There is no need to pay the customs duty either.”

  “The customs officials are not my in-laws that they would allow me to import for nothing.”

  “That’s true,” Iqbal said coolly. “But if you apply a bit of common sense, you can import it by paying just 40 per cent duty.”

  The trader friend got interested. “How?”

  Iqbal showed him the loophole in the budget. The 240 per cent duty was on stainless steel sheets and not on stainless steel angles. The only clarification in the budget was that the angle should be of 45 degrees. That meant if you bent a flat sheet by 45 degrees, the customs duty would be reduced from 240 per cent to just 40 per cent. Of course, after importing, you could make them flat once again. The formula proved to be a godsend for the manufacturers of stainless steel products.

  “Would you not save 200 per cent on customs duty?” he asked.

  The trader friend looked at him wonderstruck.

  He made millions by following Iqbal’s suggestions. What did Iqbal get in return? Nothing. He never charged his friends for advice.

  “Got it,” I told Sufi. “But, how can you keep a convict out of jail once he is sentenced?”

  “It’s very simple,” he said casually. “Send a substitute...”

  “Why should anyone agree to undergo imprisonment for someone else?”

  “There is so much poverty in our country that a man can even go to the gallows for a few bank notes.”

  “What’ll he do with money if he is to die?”

  “Won’t his wife and children benefit?”

  I thought for a while and asked, “Suppose someone agrees to undergo imprisonment as a substitute, how much will he get?”

  “About a 1000 bucks a month,” Sufi replied, “out of which, his family gets 700 and the man gets 300 inside prison.”

  Sufi explained the procedure in detail. The accused fearing conviction has to arrange for a substitute on the day the court is expected to deliver the judgment. If the case is of illi
cit business, the trial will take place in the court of the chief metropolitan magistrate (Azad Maidan).

  There is a provision of a lock-up room in the cellar of the court building. After the court passes the judgment and sentences the convict, the head constable of the concerned police station locks the convict in the same lock-up room. Now, the charge of the convict is with the head constable of the court.

  It is not difficult for crooks to bribe the head constable. The convict escapes from here and a proxy takes his place.

  “What if the head constable is an honest guy?” I asked.

  He smiled, as if I had asked him a silly question, and then replied, “A police van arrives in the evening to pick up the convicts from the court’s lock-up and take them to the prison.”

  Generally, an inspector, one driver and two constables are in the van. The godfathers keep the inspectors on their payrolls too.

  The van stops at a predetermined place between Azad Maidan and the Arthur Road jail. The real convict jumps out of the van and a substitute takes his place. The exchange happens in a fraction of a second after which the van leaves.