Mafia Queens of Mumbai

by Zaidi, Hussain S

  Our special thanks also go to starlet Preeti Jain who willingly opened up to us on Tarannum Khan for our chapter, ‘Bewitching Beauties’, and assistant police inspector Avinash Dharmadhikari for providing vital information on gangster Ravi Poojary’s wife Padma.

  We can never finish thanking all those who helped in contributing in their own special way; however, we need to thank some of our friends and co-workers in the media. The list is long but their names cannot go unmentioned. These include Mumbai Mirror resident editor Pankaj Upadhyay, Mid-Day editor Abhijit Majumdar, Suresh Karkera and Vinod Kumar Menon of Mid-Day, Neeraj Priyadarshi from the Indian Express, Mateen Hafeez of Times of India, senior crime reporter, the late Pradeep Shinde, and our colleagues at The Asian Age, Prasad Patil, Dippy Vankani, Mohammed Hassan Kamal, Anand Shinde and Amit Haralkar. Among other colleagues at The Asian Age, Aditya Prakash Iyengar undertook the arduous task of proofreading and went through each and every punctuation mark to save us from embarrassment.

  I would like to make a special mention of my personal assistant, the super efficiënt Pramodini Amin, who pitched in in her own way to help me complete the project.

  We cannot overlook the immense moral support Saby and Steven provided to Jane, proving to her again that they are the best siblings in the world. Thank you very much my sweet bros, what will I do without you, says Jane.

  We would also like to thank our friends, Mikhael Fidel D’Souza, Bonnie Vaz and Vinod Joe, who are not journalists but showed journalistic zeal and willingly tagged along with us whenever required.

  I need to specially express my profound gratitude to my nutritionist, Shabana Husain, who was very proficient at her job. Shabana’s elixir-filled recipes ensured that I was brimming with high octane energy all the time and my stress levels were kept in check.

  My thanksgiving will not be complete until I express my gratitude to my favourite women, Fatema Zahra and Narjis Zahra, who make me look at the world with a youthful perspective.

  And the apples of my eyes, Ammar and Zain, who with their loving hugs keep driving me to give my best to what I do.

  My copious thanks to my beloved friend, The Asian Age’s news editor Megha Moorthy, who is my biggest detractor on the planet. She brainstormed with us, read and edited with me to ensure we created a story that was as compelling as it was readable.

  I would like to add my sincere thanks to filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj who readily agreed to write a foreword for the book and delivered it on time, making time from his busy shooting schedule in Russia.

  My most heartfelt thanks are reserved for my worst critic, teacher and my wife, Velly Thevar, who taught me how to think, believe and most importantly write. Velly kept my feet firmly planted on terra firma.

  In the end, I would once again mention that one individual who made me believe in myself and encouraged me to become an author again, Vikram Chandra. Vikram told me in 1997 that I should write a book and last year he reiterated that I should write more often. Despite his work pressures, Vikram devoted immense attention to the book, read it several times, corrected the flaws, guided me with the correct format and suggested the title of the book. No amount of gratitude and kind words can be adequate in expressing thanks for his contribution to the current work. Shukriyaa, karam, meherbani, my friend Vikram Chandra.

  We have made our best efforts to be absolutely accurate and truthful in our narrations. However, it is quite possible there may be some mistakes due to human error. We confess that while all the accuracies belong to the people mentioned above, the inaccuracies and flaws are all ours.