 |
Maybach MaidenISBN 978-81-906981-0-8Pages 650.. It is a funny one for sure. With subtle South Indian sensibilities...this one is a total killer... It moves fast..highly entertaining piece of fiction...Grab it, we say. Tons of one liners to put Tarantino to shame. Reza Noorani--- FHM magazine. |
Excerpts from the book for your reading pleasure. Matter copyrighted. (C) Dr L.Prakash. For permission to copy for review, or other uses, please email the author at drlprakash@gmail.com
1. Cellular Prison Three
A prison is a strange place and it is unlikely if any of the readers of this story would have actually visited a real prison. Of course, a lot has been written about various prisons and a number of movies and television serials portray all about prisons. I don’t know about U.K. or USA. but as far as Indian prisons are concerned, the depiction by our movie and television script writers and directors has been far from accurate.
Prisons in India are ancient and primitive. At least most prisons are. Well, at least in the year 2004, Chennai Prison was! Yes! The famed Chennai Central had been originally constructed by the British in the year 1837. The year eighteen hundred and thirty seven! And it still remains a functional prison after a hundred and sixty seven years of construction. No major modifications have been done, nor have there been any attempts at refurnishing and remodeling. And yet this ancient prison is not only functionally adequate, but in circa 2004 accommodates two thousand prisoners, almost double of what it had originally been designed for.
The prison is located almost opposite the Chennai Central Railway Station, adjacent to the railway over bridge and is bounded by the main Poonamalee High Road and Poonga Nagar railway Station to one side and an ancient cemetery to the other. It is a large compound, some ten to twelve acres, bounded by the usual twenty five feet granite walls, razor wires, and electrified fence. Casuarina pole watch towers dot the compound wall at regular intervals and contain rifle wielding sentries.
The prison is entered via a road that descends from the over bridge. The compound is rectangular and extends from Government General Hospital at one end, almost to the end of the corporation building on the other. The entrance is guarded by a pigeon mesh with a Judas gate. This is followed by the standard double doors, two sets of them, with a tiny Judas gate on its flaps. And once a person crosses the three doors, he would reach the prison proper.
The high security block, the administrative block, the quarantine block and the carpentry section are in the beginning. Beyond this is the tower gate, next to which is the enclosure that contains the main prison proper. The prison hospital is in the rear. The main block contains the twelve prison barracks and three cellular units which hosts about two thousand prisoners. The three cellular units, called CP I, II and III are in their own dual locked compound and between them contain about two hundred cells. A standard British designed prison cell is nine feet wide by ten long. A three foot by two elevation in one corner would have an Indian closet and opposite to this would be a six feet by two structure which looks surprisingly like a tomb. This is called a Kattai or a ledge which would be used as a bed by a prisoner at nights.
This nine foot by six area is a little cramped, but the British Masters had decided that this was adequate for a single person. It could be adequate if you are not a claustrophobic type. However a paucity of accommodation and the increased number of occupants had necessitated lodging three to five persons per cell. And thus at 6.00 p.m. when the grill gate to each cell is locked with five people inside it, a nine by twelve space seems to be a little more claustrophobic and smaller due to darkness. And our story starts in a dark cell number 18 in CP III at 6.30 p.m. in the early 2005.
2. The Magazine
Cellular Prison III or CP III has a total of a hundred cells constructed in the form of a square with a large open courtyard in the middle. A couple of neem trees, a common toilet and an asbestos covered television room occupy this vacant space. The ground level has fifty cells and the top level has fifty.
Due to some strange jail logic, they always refused to lock up even number of prisoners in a cell. Presumably if a fight broke out, with an odd number, at least one person would remain neutral and arbiter. And thus a few cells had three prisoners while the remaining had five prisoners. The warden had counted the prisoners in each cell and written down the tally on a tatty brown cardboard in his hand. The single solitary sodium vapor lamp had been switched on in the open area bringing pale yellow lights to the cells.
Cell number eighteen was a little away from the sodium vapor lamp and thus the occupants of this place had adopted some indigenous methods to ward away the darkness. An aluminum mug had been reversed and its bottom hammered to produce a shallow concavity. Oil was poured into this concavity and the light of a cotton wick was producing a decent glow.
The light was not too bright and was not able to reach the farthest corners but spread adequate illumination to show the faces of the three occupants who sat around looking at a glossy magazine. It was a recent copy of the “India Today”. The cover article was about the Indian crorepathies and the style in which they lived. It talked about the flamboyant life styles and the costly purchases made by them. The magazine was in English and only one of the three could read and understand this language. This person was seated on the Kattai while the other two sat on the floor beside him. This guy was forty six years old, well built, muscular and tall. He would be about six feet, and because of his broad shoulders and well built musculature looked like a wrestler or a male model. His jet black hair had just started showing an occasional grey and he would take a great trouble to isolate and snip the strands away so that his facial hair looked jet black.
He had a thick moustache that ended abruptly at the edges of his lips. At the first look you would feel that the moustache would have looked better if it was a little longer. He was otherwise clean shaven, but seemed to be fairly androgenic and virile, because despite having shaved in the morning, his beard had started bristling slightly and even in this, one could see an occasional grey peeking in between the black. He wore a yellow colored Crocodile/Laocoset T Shirt and a green checked Lungi. He puffed a gold flake kings cigarette while he looked at the photograph that accompanied the article. It showed a fantastic car and an extremely pretty girl standing beside the car. The car was a Merc. A Mercedes Maybach worth 5.8 crores. Yes! Five hundred and eighty lac of rupees. And it was a nineteenth birth day present to the young lady who stood beside it.
The young lady was Miss. Kiran Shah, daughter of Mr. Hariprasad Shah, owner of the Hariprasad Pan Masala and Gutka brand, who was a billionaire many times over in Indian rupees and at least half a billionaire in American dollars. The doting father had given the five hundred and eighty lac rupee car as a present to his daughter and the magazine had done a cover feature on the new Indian Super Rich. Gopi read the article slowly to the two boys sitting on the floor beside him.
3. Badshah Khan
It was 7.00 p.m. when Gopi and his two alties were discussing about Kiran Shah and the magnificent Mercedes Maybach in cell number eighteen of cellular prison three in Chennai Central Prison. Leaving them there, if we travel a distance of three thousand kilometers to the west over the Arabian Sea, we would get to the city of Abu Dhabi, which is the Capital of Dubai. Though the city was built in a desert, the affluence provided by rich oil deposits had produced a well planned and a really well equipped city.
Eleven kilometers from the Airport, stood a tall multistoried building called Akbar Towers. Akbar in Urdu means great and as the name suggested, it was a great tower with eighty six stories. It was in the eighty sixth floor’s, rooftop penthouse, that the very same magazine with the very same article lay open on a frosted glass oval table around which three smart Asian youth sat sipping alcoholic beverages from real crystal glasses. Dubai was a Muslim country and thus all forms of alcoholic beverages were Haram. And thus the Johnny walker blue label whiskey bottle, lying beside the magazine too would be something illegal, but this did not seem to bother the three gentlemen who considered themselves much above such mundane things like criminal law. The man in the middle was in his early forties or late thirties, he was dressed in an Armani Shirt and Van Housen flannels. Though the outside climate was too hot for flannels, the wearer seldom patronized places which had not been well air conditioned and thus the fabric would not prove to be either hot or irritant to him.
He was fair complexioned, which was not unusual for his Pathan descent. His name was Badshah Khan and he was a top underworld don from Bombay. It was not unusual that a Bombay don was sipping whiskey in a Dubai penthouse. This was because he was now staying in Dubai for the last six years. The climate in Bombay had become a little too hot and a lot of goondas were shot by the over zealous police in the name of encounters. His organization was called the ‘B’ company or simply the Company. And when Mr. B had realized that if he stayed in Bombay, it was likely that he would be shot in the back by a police informer and the Mumbai Police would claim credit for it, he decided to leave the country.
His route from Bombay to Dubai had been a little circuitous. A traveling agent in Calcutta organized a fake passport on which he traveled to Bangkok – Thailand on a tourist Visa. Indian citizens can get a visa stamped at the airport on arrival. In Bangkok he had a colleague who had a servant who was a holder of a Pakistani passport. They replaced Badshah Khan’s photo on the passport and he took a Bangkok Karachi Thai flight. Once in Karachi, Badshah was on safe ground. His contacts in Karachi got him a genuine Pakistani passport on which he flew to Dubai. As the Maharashtra and Mumbai Police had about a dozen cases of extortion kidnap and murder booked against him, Badshah Khan or Mr. Big ‘B’ was declared as a proclaimed offender. The best the state could do was seize all his movable and immovable assets but every one knew that the few lacs in frozen bank accounts and the six buildings in various parts of Bombay hardly represented one percent of his wealth.
Badshah Khan had shifted to Dubai with his trusted aides and lieutenants. But the organization and enterprise that he had left behind in Bombay was active and well. The Dinosaur head was across the seas but the whole monstrous body was in the Mumbai and Indian underworld.
4. The ‘B’ Company
Badshah Khan had a well organized and a professionally managed industry. Gone were the old days of smuggling gold from Dubai by Dhows. The quantum change in the Gold import policies had made gold smuggling an economically unviable proposition. Presently B Company had only three types of work. One was extortion. The second was real estate and the third was drugs. Sitting in Dubai, Badshah Khan controlled the empire which generated income to fill his coffers. It was a well oiled machinery with the master switch in Dubai.
Sitting to his left was Allah Rakkha also called AR.R. after a popular Music Director from South India. And to his left was Quadar Khan his younger brother who Badshah fondly referred to as Munna. All three were proclaimed offenders. Though the Police had details about Badshah and ARR, they did not have Munna’s photos. Except for a few faithful lieutenants, no one had actually seen Munna. He had somehow managed to wrangle a Turkish passport. Thus amongst the three gangsters, it was only Munna who could travel to India and Mumbai. But he did not do this too regularly or frequently as there was absolutely no point taking any unnecessary risks. The business ran smoothly and well. All it needed was a couple of phone calls.
The Hafta or extortion business was controlled area wise. Badshah’s domain extended from Colaba in the south to Byculla and Mahalakshmi in the north. And every shop, every vendor, every wine shop and every beer bar paid a protection money or Hafta. Actually they paid two sets of Haftas, one for the local cops and the other to the dons and goondas. Beer bars paid a lot higher than legitimate businesses like Kirana merchants and Irani hotels. The rate went up with inflation and accounted to more or less five percent of the weekly turnover. It had always to be the turnover, because the B Company could not be expected to waste too much time calculating the profit margins of the various business enterprises from which it extorted.
And five percent was a fair figure because the establishment owner had to give another five percent to the cops. Thousands of establishments were targeted and there was a well organized collection army with employees of different ranks who would perform various acts.
Around one hundred and sixty thousand big and small establishments in the B Company Empire paid the extortion hafta which came to a respectable sum of sixteen crores a week. About sixty four crores a month. Eighty percent of this amount was spent as collection charges, because all the collectors and enforcers down the line had to be paid their appropriate shares. But all in all, the extortion business got B Company about ten crores a month. About a hundred and twenty crores per annum.
In addition to this regular extortion, the ‘B’ Company also indulged in sporadic one off extortions. In this, a rich victim was targeted and either a near and dear kidnapped or threatened with a kidnap. ‘B’ company was so feared that on many occasions a simple phone call from Dubai would make a millionaire cough out appropriate tax to buy peace.
And of course the third source of income for B Company was drugs. India is the world’s largest cultivator of legal opium. India also has the world’s largest number of pharmaceutical units. And thus natural narcotics and synthetic psychotropics played an important part in keeping the B Company economy buoyant!
5. The Man with a long name
Gopala Krishnan or Gopala Krishna Iyer! That was his full name. No! That is not actually correct, because if you had asked him for his full name, he would have taken both his hands to his ears, given a slight bow and started in a loud voice in Sanskrit
“Abhivadiyae Angirasa Ambarisha
Tryarishya, Pravaranvita, Harida gotra
Abasathamba Sutra, Yajush Shakhayai,
Narayana Sarmas Poutraha, Bhaskara Sarma’s Putra
Gopala Krishna Sharma namaha asmibho!”
In a way this twenty three syllable utterance was his name. His Brahminical name rather. His ancestral, historical and family name that had been taught to him when he had an Upanayanam or a thread ceremony which each Brahmin is supposed to undergo at an appropriate age. It was in Sanskrit and not easy to translate. It would mean, in Asia, India and Southern India, the descendent of so and so and such and such Rishis and saints belonging to this Gothram, this sutra and following Yajurveda, the grandson of Narayana, and the son of Bhaskara, I Gopala Krishna offer you my salutations! But Gopala Krishnan would not go about telling his complete brahminical name to all and sundry. As it is Tamil Nadu was full of anti Brahmin sentiments. Now a days it was a lot better to hide the fact that you were a Brahmin. Thus, Gopi was the name by which he was known and Gopi was the name by which he was recognized. In addition Gopi was the name on his warrant too.
The two boys looking at the glossy magazine and the fantastic car were Madan and Kishore. Madan was about twenty one and had been arrested in a murder case. Kishore was twenty six and was in prison just to keep up the prison and Police statistics. He had an old Police record for theft. Any time a new Police Inspector took over, he would routinely round up the known history sheeters and involve their names in all the unsolved thefts in that quarter. The Inspector would get his quota of arrests, the news papers would get a juicy news and the Metropolitan Magistrates Court would have some thing to do!
This was Kishore’s eleventh visit to the prison and he did not particularly mind because in three months he would accept his guilt in the prison Lok Adalat and would be released. It would seem surprising that Kishore would plead guilty for something that he had not done, but over the years he had come to realize that this was a simple way in which every one was happy. The system took care of itself and the system worked. And Kishore was too small and petty a thief to do anything against the system. Madan and Kishore were the two alties. An Alty was a bastardization of the word “orderly” and it is not that Gopi or Gopala Krishnan was a VIP or a Senior Officer to be allotted a couple of orderlies. In the prison, prisoners who could spend money could choose helpers, associates and servants from amongst the poor and destitute inmates.
The prison too had its own caste system and while Gopi represented the higher caste VIP, his two alties were the lower end servant types who served him and looked after his needs. Gopi was reading the article and the two youth beside him were listening with a rapt attention. They were finding it difficult to believe that a car could exist, that would cost five hundred and eighty lacs.
6. Bhabhi
“The worlds most expensive luxury car – The Mercedes Maybach! This comes from the Daimler Benz stable with customized super luxuries. It has fabulous interiors and an array of high tech gadgetry. There is a six month waiting period for the Indian Customers. And the price is five crores and eighty five lacs”
Read out Gopala Krishnan slowly as he translated the legend below the photo of a silver grey sleek machine which looked drop dead gorgeous. While the two boys stared with an open mouthed amazement at the fantastic automobile which looked like nothing that they had ever seen, Gopi was drooling at the maiden besides the Maybach. She looked exactly nineteen years old as the magazine had proclaimed. In a black round neck half sleeved cotton ‘T’ shirt which set off her figure perfectly she smiled at the camera as she rested her hand casually on the bonnet of the car. She had worn dark red cotton trousers which matched well with her black ‘T’- shirt which had a big silver heart on it!
While the two boys drooled over the curves of the sexy car, Gopi drooled over the curves of the sexy girl. He continued reading and soon the article diverted on to exotic French perfumes, original champagne, Porches and Cartier jewellery. The boys looked at the pictures and the moment Gopi was about to turn the page, Madan said “Sir! Sir! Is the young lady married? The father who can give a six crore gift to his daughter for her eighteenth birth day would surely give her a fantastic dowry. I wonder who would be the lucky person to marry her!”
The light in the upside down aluminum pot flickered and Kishore quickly walked to one corner to procure a plastic bottle half full with gingley oil, a little of which he poured into the flickering lamp. The glow stabilized and the light grew brighter. A shuffling of foot steps was heard. The staircase which led to the first floor was metallic and they could hear the boot clacking on the metal. In a few moments a shabby figure in a brown prison warden’s uniform had come to the cell door. “Gopi Saar! Can I have a cigarette?”
The slur in his voice clearly indicated that the prison warden was drunk. He had come for night duty just now and could have easily bought a pack of cigarettes if he had wanted it. But instead of doing it, he had come straight to Gopi’s cell, though he only knew too well that Gopi would have paid triple the cost to get his cigarettes in. But when a prison warden asks you for a cigarette, it is not a good idea to refuse him. He has hundreds of ways to trouble and harass you. As long as you stay in a prison, it is better to be a little servile and get along with things. He dipped his hand under his folded bed sheet and pulled out a crumpled packet of gold flake kings. On opening the pack, he found that it contained just three cigarettes. He pulled out one and gave it to Madan who walked across and handed it through the grill. He nodded a thanks and walked away, fumbling in his pockets for a match box. When the two boys looked towards Gopi once again they saw a small smile curling on the corner of his lips as he spoke softly
“What you say is absolutely correct, but a man like H.P. would hardly want to get his daughter married to a thief or a killer. So dowry or no dowry, I don’t think that you boys stand a chance!”
Almost in unison, Kishore and Madan said
“No Sir! It was not for us that we had been thinking. It was for you sir! Won’t she make a lovely Bhabhi for us?”
Gopi broke out into a loud laugh.
7. A Sikh Gentleman
The exact time the three gangsters. Badshah, ARR and Munna in Dubai, and three prisoners Gopi, Madan and Kishore in Chennai were looking at the same photo, in New Delhi Shahdara, in an ancient dilapitated building, in its second floor balcony sat two young men. The one on the left was a bearded Sardar. He had a pink turban and a close look at his face told that he had trimmed his beard using a scissors. Something which was decidedly against the tenets of Sikhism.
But this was not the only tenet of his religion he broke. His Kesh or hair had been cropped short and the pink turban had been more of a camouflage. His hair was not long enough for him to shove in his comb or Kanga which was another Sikh tenet. Neither of his wrist contained a steel bangle or a Kadha which his bold and brave ancestors used to ward off sword blows. He was wearing a Jockey – Roopa underwear size 105 and not a Kacha as dictated by his holy book. And finally he did not have his sword or Kirpan tucked in his waist band. The weapon he carried was a 9 mm pistol the brand name of which he was unaware because all its markings were in Chinese. The pistol had seven rounds in its magazine and none in its breech. It was tucked into a brown elastic hand snapped around his mid calf. Though the pistol had been a little bulky and heavy, the loose trousers ensured that the bulge did not show.
He was called Mr. H.D. His full name was Hardayal Singh. Though he was a Sardar, he was not born in India. He was born in Southall in London. His father ran an Indian corner shop and an off license in Southall. HD grew up in a racist atmosphere which inner cities in London were permeated during the eighties and nineties, a period which is now nostalgically known as the Thatcher era! Paki Bashing was a newly introduced sport among the young white punks of London. Anyone who was neither white or a Negro was a Paki. And the wild undisciplined British Punks thought that all Asians were good candidates for being bashed with an aluminum base ball bat! Hardayal was sixteen and returning back from school one evening while he was pounced upon by a group of hungry punks, wild as Hyenas. At six and a half feet Hardayal was a strong chap but was no match for six balding, ear ringed, beer drunk, English youth with base ball bats and clubs in their hands.
He ended with six broken bones and an eight month stay in the hospital. The doctors told him that he was extremely fortunate to have recovered from such a serious head injury without major problems. He could have even ended up being a human vegetable. The Police investigation was purely perfunctory and though HD volunteered to describe his assailants for an identikit picture or to locate his attackers from the rogues gallery, the Police were not too keen.
The Police Chief had explained to Hardayal’s father “Skin heads, clean shaven and a single ear ring on the left ear, with a tin of Heineken in their hands, they all look similar to me sir! When I who am an Englishman cannot make out one from the other, how can we expect Mr. Hardayal to do so? Moreover the light was not too bright and this would increase the possibility of mistakes manifold. I do not want your son to pick up a wrong man and our Police force to harass an innocent citizen. So I think it would be better to close the case here itself”.
And the case of assault on Hardayal Singh was closed. But the young Sikh lad did not forget the six faces because he had seen them in the neighborhood.
8. Hardayal Singh
He painstakingly located the six of them by lurking in the shadows and following them discreetly. He found out their favourite pub. He found out the snooker point they patronized. He found out the football teams they supported. And finally he found out their names and addresses. In that academic year he had already lost eight months to the hospital stay and the next two months he spent in collecting this data.
Armed with all details he approached the Police Station and swore a complaint. He was sure about who had assaulted him and was wiling to testify in the court. But at that time Hardayal was totally unaware of how the British Criminal Justice System worked. The moment a complainant swore a complaint, the Police did not rush ahead to arrest the alleged perpetrator. They looked at what was legally termed as the prima facie evidence to support the veracity of the complaint. They would then conduct enquiries to find out if a crime had been really committed and if the alleged perpetrator could have committed the crime. At this stage they would pick up the suspect for an enquiry. At the end of the enquiry if the Police was convinced that the suspect was the alleged perpetrator, then and only then would they arrest him. And only after the arrest would a trial be conducted to decide whether the accused was guilty, and if guilty the quantum and type of punishment he deserved.
In Hardayal’s case it was clear that an offence had been committed. It would be classified as a grievous assault and even attempted homicide. But the cops did not agree to his accusations about the identity of his assailants. They conducted what they called a thorough enquiry and found that boys had all alibis. Air tight alibis. There was no way in which the case would stand in a court of law. The sergeant explained apologetically that because a long time had passed since the assault, they had not been able to produce any corroboratory evidence and thus they would not be in a position to take any action. He did not deny that those could be the boys, but his hands were tied. The British Legal System was such.
Sikh people are people of honour. For them honour comes before life itself. And thus when Hardayal went to his father that night and told him about what he intended to do; the old man not only blessed him but also gave him ten thousand pounds in cash. In tens and twenties. This was what he had saved for emergencies like this. HD collected his passport and a haversack and took a taxi straight to Heathrow. From the traveling agents he found out that a British Citizen did not need a Visa to travel to half the countries in the world. He wanted to go to India but realized that he needed a Visa from the Indian High Commission in Aldwytch to be able to get there. And finally he got it. Nepal! He did not need a Visa for Nepal. To his good luck there was a 6.40 a.m. British Airways flight to Bombay which connected to an Indian Airlines flight to Katmandu. The lady at the airlines desk assured him that he did not need an Indian Visa because he would be a transit passenger in Bombay. If he wanted to visit India, he might have to take a visa in Katmandu, but she was not sure.
The flight left from Heathrow airport at 6.40 a.m. He was advised to report for boarding at least an hour before the flight. He checked-in his haversack and suitcase which contained the money. He had a waist pouch with some loose change, his passports and tickets. When he took a taxi back to Southall from Heathrow, the time was ten minutes past mid night. It was a Thursday and he knew that the six punks would drink beer at the Black Buck pub and watch football on T.V.
9. The Delhi Don
He got dropped at the corner and walked down the street that led to the pub. Exactly opposite the pub was the sports and gun shop! The glass fronted display unit had an excellent selection of pistols and revolvers on display. HD had walked past a few days and one display had fascinated him. The shop keeper had piled a mound of 9 mm bullets on which was stuck a Beretta 9 mm pistol. HD knew about guns and magazines. A pistol in the fire arms shop lying over a pile of ammunition was too good an opportunity to miss.
He had come prepared. He had picked up a decent sized rock from the pavement. He hesitated a little before hurling the rock into the shop window. He was sure that the shop would have an alarm, that would be triggered the moment the window pane broke. He had to go in, grab the pistol and a handful of rounds. He had then to sneak away to a place of hiding before anyone could see him. Once he found a safe place in one of the dark lanes, he would check the magazine and load the pistol. The Black Buck pub was right across and it would be an easy matter to confront his assailants. He stood hesitant before the glass pane for a short while, and then hurled at the glass with all his might. It was a lucky day for HD because though the window shattered, no alarm buzzed.
He looked to both sides and gave out a smile as no one had noticed him. Quick as a flash he plucked out the pistol along with a handful of rounds and without making a noise walked with measured steps to a side street. He pulled out the magazine and smiled. He was in luck. The magazine was already loaded. He did not need the bullets he had picked up. He pulled back the ejector and loaded a round in the breech. He pulled out his shirt and tucked the pistol into his belt. He had a smile on his face as he walked with slow and deliberate steps towards Black Buck pub. The six of them were sitting huddled together on a big sofa watching the television screen above. Straight ahead of them was the mirror front of the bar in which he could see all their faces clearly. Without a trace of emotion, he pulled out the pistol and shot all the six youth one by one at the base of the neck. Two of them had turned around and taken the bullet in their throats.
There was panic and chaos in the pub and he dropped the pistol, emptied his pockets of the loose rounds and coolly walked out. Again luck was favorable to him because he found a cruising taxi at the end of the street which dropped him at Heathrow Airport at 2.30 a.m. Till the flight took off, Hardayal could hardly breathe and he was only able to finally relax in Hotel Soaltree Oberoi. It took him two days to loose himself in Katmandu and six more days to get to Patiala where his cousins lived. His reputation of having shot half a dozen Angrez youth in their necks had preceded him and he was received with a great honour and respect.
Hardayal’s first cousin Sukhvinder was a big Goonda with his operations in Delhi. And to him Hardayal was the type of person who would be able to take their empire of crime to great heights. In the sixteen years HD was in India, he had progressed to a significant extent. And now he occupied a position in New Delhi as Badshah Khan would have occupied about six to seven years ago in Mumbai. The Delhi cops were not the encounter types, but still he was underground and stayed away from the cops eyes. The current underground was a second floor balcony in a dilapidated building in Shahdara where he gazed at the Maybach maiden as he sipped his rum and coke.
10. The Maybach Maiden
While three people in Chennai, three people in Dubai and two Dons in Delhi were watching the maiden and Maybach, the girl herself was looking at the magazine too. She was sitting in her bedroom on the sixteenth floor flat in Marine drive. The car which had taken almost the whole country by storm was parked in the basement garage with high tech and complex security. The insurance companies had insisted on such an extensive security as a prerequisite to insure the vehicle.
She was lying prone on a large oval soft bed, flipping the pages of the magazine. She was dressed in casual silk pajamas that set off her figure and made her look a little more sensual and sexy than she actually was. On a brown soft velvet bean bag on the floor sat another young girl. This one was dressed in a blue jeans and a sky blue ribbed top. The girl on the bed as we would have all recognized by now was the Maybach Maiden Kiran Shah. And the girl in jeans on the bean bag was Miss Anuradha Palnitkar, a close friend and confident of Kiran. The sixteenth floor lush flat was empty but for the two of them. Two guards carrying 7.62 mm automatic machine pistols stood outside the main door while another bodyguard stayed at the end of the corridor. These were Kiran’s security and her father had prohibited her from going anywhere without them.
Turning to Anuradha, Kiran said “The world would be thinking that I am one of the luckiest girls, but this could not be further from truth. I am so bored. I feel as if I am in a cage. I feel so stiffled.”
Anuradha Palnitkar recognized the symptoms even as they arrived. She knew that now Kiran would talk about a golden cage and all comforts but an absolute lack of freedom. She had heard it enough and was not willing to hear it any more! In an equally bored voice she said
“Kiran dear! You are not a kid! You are a young woman, all of twenty years! And you know what you have is a package deal. You cannot eat your cake and have it as well. Either you are a crorepathi or you are not. And if you are rich beyond imagination, then it is an established fact that all these trappings go along with it. And if you ask me, I would be extremely willing to trade places with you any day!”
This seemed to stimulate Kiran who abruptly got up and looked at her friend. Something which Anuradha had just said had given her an idea. But before she did anything she had to check up on her father. Pulling out her mobile she speed dialed one which got her dad’s mobile number which rang in a few moments. Daddy told her that he was in the middle of a business meeting in Madh Island. He was not sure as to how long the meeting would last but he would come back before day break.
Kiran could not suppress her smile because from the female voices in the background she could have a faint idea about the meeting her dad would be engaged in. Once she disconnected the phone she looked at her friend with a twinkle in her eyes.
Anuradha almost panicked as she said “No! No! Kiran! No! Whatever outrageous and naughty idea is creeping into your head, I want absolutely no part of it. And I would not be helping you in any way at all”.
11. The lost passport
Gopi turned the page back again to the one with the photo of the girl and the Merc. Gopi considered himself to be young and smart. Despite a fairly high opinion about himself, Gopi thought that his two chamchas were pulling his leg by calling the girl in the photo as their Bhabhi. For one she was too young. According to the magazine, she had celebrated her twentieth birth day last week, while coming July; he would be turning forty six. Thus it was an absurd notion as it was.
But this would not stop Gopi from building his castles in the air because he had been thinking for the last few days that he ought to quit Chennai. He had run his racket one time too many and the atmosphere outside had not been too healthy. The Inspector who was his partner in crime had ditched him and now he was in prison. But the going was good when it was really going well. It was a fantastic scam and had worked very well. Gopi did not know where the idea actually came from. It could have been an English movie that he had seen or a novel that he might have read. But it was a good idea and worked well when it worked. He had become friendly with Mohanraj when he had gone to Vadapalani Police Station to complain about his lost passport. He had just then got back from Kuwait having completed an assignment, that he did not want to think about. For that matter, his past life and adventures was something that he wanted to totally forget.
He had come back to India after severing all ties with the organization that had employed him. He had hired a flat in Vadapalani and was on the lookout for a job. And one day he had found that his cupboard had been riffled and his passport and ten thousand rupees cash missing. It was fortunate that all his money was in the bank, and the ten thousand was all that was in his house. The house was locked exactly as he had left it. Gopi could not apply for a duplicate passport unless he filed a Police complaint and submitted a copy with his fresh application. He had gone to the Vadapalani Police Station at about 11.00 a.m. on a week day and had found the Inspector free and in a good mood. Gopi had told Mohanraj that he was really puzzled as to how his passport and money could have been missing when the house had remained locked.
The Police Inspector turned out to be a really intelligent chap. The house owner lived one flat down and the lock and key had been given to Gopi by his landlord. The Inspector told him that the only possible suspect could be his landlord and house owner. Mohanraj was free enough and taking Gopi with him barged into the house owner’s flat one floor below. The old man panicked when he saw the Inspector and had not withstood even ten minutes of questioning. He broke down and took them to the bedroom cupboard from which he took out the money and passport.
As Gopi had left his motor cycle in the Police Station and had come in Mohanraj’s jeep, it was only natural that he was dropped back. Gopi desired to show his gratitude to the Inspector by offering him five thousand rupees from the collected cash which Mohanraj accepted gratefully because he too felt that he had earned it. He offered tea to Gopi who happily accepted it. It was while they sat sipping hot tea that a new complainant came. He was a jeweller who had come to complain about a bounced cheque. Gopi listened attentively while the jeweller narrated his complaint.
He had given six lacs worth of jewels to a local lawyer who had paid by cheque. Now the cheque had bounced and the lawyer was refusing to either make payment or return the jewels. Gopi was interested in the situation and was curious to see how Inspector Mohanraj solved the problem. But as it is, the complaint had given him an idea.
12. Vadapalani Police Station
The Inspector spent about ten minutes ascertaining the facts. He wanted to know from the jeweler as to how he could be so stupid as to have given away the jewels against a cheque payment to an unknown party. The jeweler went on to say that the lawyer fellow was not an unknown party. He had been an old client. He had patronized the shop in the past and had purchased material, though not for such a big amount. He had given cheques for the previous purchases and all of them had been good cheques. About two months ago the lawyer had come with his family on a Saturday evening. He had to purchase jewellery for his daughters wedding. The moment he entered, he waved in his cheque book and said that he had a bank balance of over ten lacs and because of his hurry had not been able withdraw the cash from the bank. He then told the jeweler that in case he was willing to trust him and accept his cheque, they would do their shopping with him. Otherwise they would take their business elsewhere. The jeweler had become a little greedy. He did not want to loose business to his competitor and thus agreed to sell the goods. About six lacs worth of jewels had been purchased but when the cheque had been presented for clearance on Monday, it bounced higher than a tennis ball. Each time he called the lawyer he would get another excuse. The jeweler was patient because he did not want to spoil relationships with a good customer. About a month later the cheque had been presented and represented so many times that its back and front were full of rubber stamps of various banks.
The lawyer had been sent a legal notice under Section 138 of Negotiable Instruments Act. He had come to the shop with yet another excuse, given two post dated cheques for three lacs each and collected the old cheque. This time the jeweler had some hope that his problem would be settled but when the due time came and the cheques were presented, they bounced again. The jeweler was frantic and almost fell at the Inspectors feet. Gopi had finished his tea but did not get up because the events were too interesting and the Inspector did not seem to be uncomfortable or unhappy about his presence. The jeweler then started bargaining. He started off with ten thousand and went right up to fifty thousand. The Inspector was not only a man of the world but had also seen all there was to see in crime, law and order. He gave explanations to the client. The jeweler was in a tricky situation no doubt. If a complaint was lodged and filed, only a cheque bounce case could be filed. This was a bailable offence and they could not actually arrest the accused. In addition the chap was a lawyer. And if they did recover the jewels after the case was filed, the same may have to be deposited in the Police Station and he might take a long time to get them back after the completion of a trial. Gopi was smiling that though he could clearly understand what the Police man had desired, the jeweler was a little slow on uptake as he stood silent fidgeting with his hands. Gopi was a loquacious person and broke out spontaneously “Of course if you are willing to spend about half the value of the jewels, the Inspector here would be surely able to recover your possessions.”
The jeweler stammered and said “Three lacs is too much. The best I can do is to spend about a lac of rupees!” Inspector Mohanraj was a little happy that Gopi had spoken what was embarrassing him a little, and once the bargaining process had started, he could take charge of the situation. In less than ten minutes a deal was stuck for one lac plus a gold chain for the Inspector’s wife!
13. The Lawyers house
The jeweler sitting in the Inspector’s room was not particularly aware as to who Gopi was. He took him to be someone connected to the station on official business. Gopi too was a little surprised that the Inspector had asked him to stay back. But at that moment he was not to know that the clever Inspector had a reason of his own to retain him in the Police Station. It was only much later that Gopi realized that Mohanraj was an extremely smart man and was using him as a cats paw.
This, he would know from the Inspector himself and that too at a much later date. In these days of anti corruption squads and Vigilance Police, he could not afford to collect any money directly as bribes. The currency could be marked. Its serial numbers could be noted. The jeweler might have laid a trap or might have been doing a sting operation. Gopi’s presence would thus act as an insurance policy. Financial transactions if any would be mediated in such a way that the actual cash receiving was done by Gopi. In this way the Inspector could keep his hands clean. The cop asked for the lawyers address and from his wallet the jeweler produced a visiting card which showed that the advocate had his office in Law Chambers in the High Court, while his residence was in a flat in T. Nagar behind Panagal Park. Gopi knew that the Police work in Chennai City was more or less jurisdictional and that Pondy Bazaar had another Police Station. The jeweler had his shop in Vadapalani and thus he had come to Vadapalani Police Station to lodge his complaint. Gopi expected the Inspector to co-ordinate with the other Police Station prior to taking any action but was a little surprised that Mohanraj did no such thing. He asked the jeweler to accompany him. He asked Gopi if he had anything to do and gave a big smile when the latter said that he was relatively free. A Sub Inspector and two Constables were tagged along. A Head Constables and a PC were sent in advance to locate the lawyers flat and stand as scouts outside it. In less than an hour they were at the lawyers flat. Gopi realized that Mohanraj was a clever Inspector indeed. Prior to leaving the Police Station, he had asked the jeweler to call the lawyer in his Chamber and find out his whereabouts. It would not do to go to his flat and find the lawyer there. To their good fortune the lawyers junior who picked up the phone in the chamber told him that the boss was in the Court Hall and expected back to his own chamber only by 4.00 p.m. Confident in the knowledge that they would be able to catch the lawyer’s family by surprise, the jeep left to the flat.
The Lawyers house had only his wife and daughter who were shell shocked to see a posse of Policemen along with the jeweler barge into their house at three in the afternoon. Gopi could not but marvel at the way the Police Inspector used human psychology to solve the problem. Without actually saying anything, Mohanraj had conveyed to the flustered and distraught wife that they had solved a case and had come to collect the jewels which their lawyer husband had said was in his wife’s possession. He gave an impression as though the lawyer had been arrested and was waiting in the Police Station. It did not take more than ten minutes to break to lawyer’s wife. The point that the only other occupant in the house was the eighteen year old daughter might have also contributed significantly to the recovery of the jewels which eventually turned out to be in locker number 33A in the Indian Bank, T. Nagar Branch. By 4.30 the jewels had been recovered.
What the Inspector did next was a master stroke. He convinced the wife that if she wanted to avoid action against her husband, then she should sign a statement that they were returning the jewels to the shop keeper and have collected the cheques that they had issued earlier. The wife was overawed by the Police and wrote exactly as dictated by the Inspector.
Gopi closed his magazine and rested his back to the prison wall as his mind went back to that day which was the first day of the start of his career in the world of con and deceit.
14. Lamba Suresh
ARR saw that the three glasses had drained to the bottom and hastened to fix fresh drinks. His measured hands poured ninety milliliters in a single tilt. Four cubes of ice added to each glass followed by soda. Badshah Khan and Company were not cultured enough to know that you only toast and say cheers when you start drinking. Unless you have a special toast you don’t clink glasses in the middle of a drinking session. Nevertheless they physically clinked the glasses and Badshah turned back his attention towards the magazine “Almost six crores for a car! This guy who can give this much for his daughter’s birth day could well be persuaded to give us something!”
“Thoda bahut hamare liye bhi” A little bit for us too – said ARR.
Quadar Khan alias Munna pulled the magazine towards him and ran his index finger over the sleek lines of the dazzling automobile.
“Aaj tak Shah Bhai humse kaise bache?” How did this Shah fellow escape from us till date?
Badshah nodded and asked in a slow voice “Have we collected luxury tax from him as yet?”
Luxury tax was an extortion amount which was some sort of an insurance premium. This was not actually a kidnap ransom, but a one time payment to avoid kidnapping and harassment. In addition, if some such payment was collected, word spread quickly that so and so had paid his protection. This would ensure that the other goondas did not put a bite on this client. And once this luxury tax had been paid, the B Company would leave the millionaire and his family well alone.
Munna scratched his head and said “Boss! Samajh Mein nahi aa raha ki yhe party miss kaise ho gai! Abhi tak to apan logon ne luxury tax nahi collect kiya hai!” ARR too scratched his beard as he slowly replaced his whiskey glass on the glass frosted table.
“Surprising indeed that we have missed this fellow”. He then pulled out his mobile and started dialing. The important thing about the ‘B’ company jobs was their precision and perfection. It was almost like an ISO 9001 Company with its own systems and procedures and in less than five minutes the information was communicated to the boys in Bombay.
The boy in this case was a thirty three year old youth called Lamba Suresh, a pituitary giant, who at that moment was in a beer bar flirting with a barmaid. ARR gave cryptic instructions. Lamba Suresh had to buy the current issue of India today, read the article about the costliest car, and call them back. ARR had taken particular care to ensure that he had not named Shah in the conversation. The ‘B’ Company had a tacit approval of the Dubai Government and they were not worried about phone taps at their end. However they could never be sure as to what was happening in Bombay. The Mumbai Police had waged an all out war on gangsters, goondas and underworld dons. The Maharashtra Police had over the years developed a strong network of informers. Though it was a known fact that giving information about the ‘B’ Company was as good as signing a death warrant for oneself, a careful blend of carrot and stick policy had ensured that the cops too had a little inclination as to what was happening.
Though it was unlikely for Lamba Suresh’s mobile phone to be tapped, still it was always better to play it safe. Once the boy collected the desired information, he would go to one of the thousands of public call offices dotted all over Mumbai and call them with information. The Big ‘B’ said “Knowing Lamboo’s ways he would now be in a beer parlor with his grubby paws up the barmaid’s skirt. I think he will take at least ten minutes to call us. Let us have another drink. And order for the beef roast faast! I am hungry!”
15. Sukhvinder Singh
Hardayal Singh or HD had shaved his beard and shorn his tresses at Katmandu Airport toilet and also destroyed his passport in his hotel toilet in Nepal. Thus he was no longer a Sardar from then on! However once in New Delhi, he needed to disguise himself on numerous occasions depending on situations and thus today he was a pink turbaned Sardar. And opposite him was his cousin the Nazi. Nazi was Hardayal’s father’s elder sister’s son. He was called Nazi because of the acronym for his name. His parents had named him Sukhdev. A Singh is a lion and all Sikhs share a common surname of Singh. Sukhdev Singh was thus fondly called SS by his friends.
Someone had commented that his anger, violence and terror was more than the SS Nazi agents in Hitler’s time. This somehow attracted Sukhdev. This five footed Sardar asked around about Hitler’s elite Nazi corps of the SS and liked the name. In addition he took a fancy to Hitler’s Swastika symbol. And thus SS or Nazi became his nick name. Unlike his cousin from England, he had entered a world of crime on his twelfth birth day. On the stage of crime only artists who remain unrecognized remain unmolested. A flowing lion mane and a flashy turban would hardly lend itself to a proper disguise and so SS decided to cut his hair short and shave off his mane.
Unlike his cousin HD, SS was not a pretty fellow. Actually he was a total mismatch as far as physical characters were concerned. Sardars are usually tall but Nazi was only five feet. That too with elevator heels which augmented his height by at least four inches. People who had seen him vertical and barefooted, and there were not many who had seen him like this whispered behind his back that he was actually less than four feet nine inches tall.
The females who had seen him without shoes had seldom seen him in a vertical position without foot wear. When he sat beside them, everything looked normal and above board, because the Nazi’s physical mismatch had only left his legs short. Above the waist he was normal like anyone else. It was during his childhood that he had to bear the brunt of cruel jokes which his school mates and friends employed to tease him about his lack of height. He was called a Bauna or Chotu. All this lasted till he was twelve. And then Nazi did what changed his life. One of his senior colleagues who used to tease him more than the others was found dead in the fields with both his legs chopped at his knees. The words Bauna were carved on his chest with a carving knife. There were no witnesses for the murder and though all suspicions fell on Nazi, as he was the only one with a motive, no action could be taken against him because he had neither the means nor the opportunity.
In so far as the means was concerned, Nazi had been too clever because both the axe and the Kirpan which had performed the act had been washed thoroughly and replaced from where they had been picked up. And as far as the opportunity was concerned, he simply could not have done it because he was attending his cousins wedding in a village a hundred and six kilometers away. He had a thousand witnesses to alibise him. But what only Nazi knew was that his erstwhile tormentor and now a victim had an illicit sexual relationship with his sister in law and the two used to meet in the afternoons in a shanty beyond the fields. A few days observation had told Nazi, that after the sister in law’s departure, the youth spent about half an hour in his post coital slumber.
SS had decided to do the kill on the wedding day. His cousin had a bullet motor cycle. It was a huge and an immense machine and no one could even imagine that a short and puny twelve year old like SS could even kick start it, leave alone drive it. When the whole house had been busy in the wedding festivities and when he had ensured that he had shown enough of his face, he decided to make his move. It was a big wedding with over a thousand guests and thus it was an easy job for SS to drive away on his cousin’s motor cycle with an axe and a sword.
16. The Nazi
It was one in the afternoon when SS started on his bike. It took him about two hours to cover the distance and he stuck to back roads and mud tracks so that no one recognized him. As it is, a Sardar youth on a Bullet Motorcycle was not too strange a spectacle to attract any particular attention. He had parked the bike at the end of the fields and walked to the watchman’s hut in the rear which was the place of tryst for his enemy who had called him a dwarf. It was his good fortune that it had been timed to perfection. He saw the shy lady scamper away, her face covered by a paloo.
He waited exactly for ten minutes before slowly and noiselessly tiptoeing to the hut. He found his quarry fast asleep prone on the charpoy hammock. The back of his bare neck was too tempting a target to pass bye and a single clean stroke of the axe half served the neck and killed the victim on the spot. But the Nazi was not yet finished. The twelve year old never knew where he got the strength from. Like chopping logs of wood, he axed away both the legs at the knee. Using the sharp edge of his Kirpan, he carved in Punjabi – BAUNA – The dwarf. Indeed with the chopped legs the dead victim was shorter than the Nazi. He looked around to see if he had left anything. He was almost certain that he had not touched anything, though it was doubtful if the rural Police would dust the hut for prints. With no sign of panic and cool blooded determination, he walked out carrying the axe and sword in a hand each.
He drove back to the neighboring village but remembered to stop at the rivulet on the way and wash both the implements. The axe went back into the log shed and the big Kirpan in the armory. His blood splattered clothes were burnt at the river bank where he washed himself. His four and a half hour absence from the wedding had been totally missed. SS had been a clever lad because both prior to his departure and after his return; he had made enough racket to ensure that a lot of people remembered him. The Baarat came at 7.30 p.m. and the Bidai occurred the next morning. SS had elected to stay back an additional day and it was a Police Constable who had come in search of him the next day who told SS that his classmate, (Schoolmate rather) had been killed. The words dwarf carved in his skin and flesh pointed a finger of suspicion towards him and the constable had come to investigate.
Two things had worked in his favor. The victim had been seen alive at 2.00 p.m. in his school. At this time at least a thousand witnesses had seen Nazi, more than a hundred kilometers away. And SS had an alibi of a thousand to prove that he was at the wedding. Obviously he could not be at two places together and thus it was physically impossible for him to have done the killing.
Though the cops had closed the case and classified it as an unsolved killing, the villagers were not fooled. They were no strangers to honour killings and if SS had done it, he deserved kudos. The only person who suspected was the Nazi’s cousin who had found out about the depleted petrol in the motorcycle tank. But he told no one about it. From that day no one had called him a Bauna.
Nothing much happened for the next three years except that, while all his friends continued to grow, SS stayed at his standard four feet and a half. He would have ended up as a farmer like his father, and grand father before him, growing wheat and mustard in the lush fields that his family owned, had not a sudden event happened that prevented the fields from being ploughed and tilled by a short farmer.
This event was yet another wedding. A marriage that cemented new relations and un-cemented old ones. An event that dug up the graves, exposed the skeletons in the cupboard and washed all the dirty linen out in the open.
17. The Betrayal
The young man who had been killed and mutilated by the Nazi had a younger sister. When this lass came of marriageable age, it was decided to get her married to a youth from the neighboring village. And this youth was none else but the cousin, whose bullet motorcycle had been used by the Nazi. Over the years he had pieced the evidence and more or less found out about the four and a half hour gap during which SS had been missing. But as it was his own cousin he kept quiet.
But once he got married, the equations changed. He was left in a curious situation in which he was married to a girl whose brother was a victim while his own cousin was a murderer. Initially he did not want to rake up old issues and kept quiet about it, but one night when he was pissed drunk, blabbered it all to his wife. The young lady was justifiably upset and rushed to her father’s house on the next day and told him every thing. The dead boy’s father was absolutely livid with rage. As long as it was a rumor, he could give a benefit of doubt.
But once he knew, it would not do to leave his son’s death unavenged. He decided that the short boy would have to pay for his son’s death. An eye for an eye and both legs for both legs would be a standard Sikh way of avenging ones honour. He had two young sons and the three decided to lay a trap. The sons maintained a surveillance and found out that the Nazi slept in the out on his charpoy in rear courtyard of his house. They decided to ambush him in the night and take their revenge.
But fate played a cruel trick on Nazi. SS had a sudden attack of malaria and had to sleep indoors enveloped by two sets of blankets. Unfortunately his father decided to sleep outside. It was a dark moonless night, and the father and two sons decapitated and amputated a wrong man. The father was killed in lieu of his son. The carnage of silence did not wake anyone and his mother discovered the horror on the next day. Nazi walked out shivering in the throes of malaria. Looking at his fathers mutilated form; he broke out into a loud wail of agony. But he was a true Sikh at heart. A lion at that. And lions don’t cry. It took him about half an hour to stabilize. He walked next door to summon his uncle. He instructed the elders to make arrangements for his father’s funeral. As the only son it would be his job to light the funeral pyre. He told his uncles to keep everything ready. He would come to light the pyre once he had ensured that he had earned a right to do it.
He did not need any proof or evidence to know who did the killing. It was the family of the chap whose legs he had chopped. He first went across the village to ironsmith Kaloo’s house. Kaloo was rumored to be the best fabricator of katta’s or country pistols. He was also an expert on repairing shotguns which almost every house in the village seemed to posses. SS knew that he had to kill at least three people, the father and two sons. He would decide about the lady of the house later. Kaloo Lohar was a little worried to see the fierce determination in the young shorty’s face. In a conspirational whisper he said that he had an original Angrezi weapon. It was a 0.32 pistol made by a Smith and Wesson company in London or Japan or Germany, Kaloo was not exactly sure where. Once SS saw the weapon, not only did he fall in love with it but also came back in about half an hour with half of his mother’s gold jewellery.
Nazi did not enquire closely about the origin of the weapon. He was offered a box of fifty rounds but he did not want that much. He loaded eight rounds in the magazine, learnt how to cock and load the bullet into the barrel and walked out with a smile. Though he was short and still a teenager, Kaloo Lohar shivered a little because his face bore signs of cruelty the likes of which the ironsmith had not seen in his life.
18. Honour killings
Sukhdev Singh alias SS alias Nazi (who had not yet been named as a Nazi) tucked the pistol in his waist band and walked with determined steps towards his enemy’s house. It was almost mid day. The procuring of the pistol had taken so long. In addition the funeral arrangements would be ready and he had to hurry. When he got to his enemy’s house, it was lunch time.
The father and two sons were seated on the floor and with them was Nazi’s cousin from the neighboring village. The same guy whose bullet motorcycle had been used by Nazi for his first killing! The moment SS saw him, the penny dropped. So that was how they located him. If he had not been suffering from malaria, it would have been him, who would be lying with one chopped neck and two chopped legs. His body gave out a loud shudder as he quivered like a leaf in the throes of another malarial febrile attack. The four men paused in their eating and looked up. He looked a pathetic sight, a gangly sixteen year old dwarf shivering with malaria. Rather than getting scared of him, they started laughing at him. He was indeed presenting a pathetic spectacle. But little did they know about the ugly black contraption tucked at his waistband. A loaded pistol is a great equalizer. The Nazi did not whip up the pistol or wave it at them. As a matter of fact he did not pull it out at all till the very last moment.
In the initial stages it appeared as if he was walking to them to apologize and ask for his life to be spared. And this was what the father and two sons had expected. His cousin too nodded appreciatively. Yes! This was the correct thing to do. A lot of blood had already been shed. One life in exchange of the other. Both sides were now quits. It was a sensible thing for them to shake hands and make it up. It was when SS was about four feet away that he pulled out the pistol. The boy’s father opened his mouth to speak something, but before the words could exit the mouth, the Nazi had fired into his open mouth blowing his occiput and spraying blood, bits, gore and brain all over his wife’s saree. The wife had just come out of the kitchen carrying a couple of hot chapattis. Before any of the startled sons could react, the Nazi shot them both in their necks. His shocked cousin got up but now the Nazi could not leave any witnesses. He shot him too in the right eye.
The two women fell next, both shot in the mouth. Somehow the Nazi had realized that the neck was the most vulnerable part of a human body and a hit here was certainly fatal. Having completed the carnage, the Nazi tucked his pistol in the waistband and walked to his house to light the funeral pyre. He tossed the pistol over the blazing flames the same as his beard and hair. He had cut his hair short and shorn of his beard and mustache; he looked more like a twelve year old than his actual sixteen years. By the time his father’s body burnt, the uncles had taken a decision. The only black sheep in the family was Bali Bhai. Originally he was Balbir Singh. But the day he cut off his beard and hair, had stopped calling himself Singh. He had shifted to Delhi and was rumored to be one of the major Delhi underworld dons and a king pin in the kidnap and extortion business.
In five years the Nazi had progressed rapidly up the ladder of the crime and his crude and violent methods reinforced his title of a Nazi. Thus when Nazi had known about his cousin HD from England and his Police troubles, it was easy to organize an escape route into India via Nepal.
After Bali Bhai’s death, SS had taken over the empire. Through brute strength and terror he had run his empire with an iron fist. Eleven years ago, when HD joined him, things took a dramatic turn for the better.
19. Smack, Satta and Sharafath
The Nazi’s business and that of his uncle Bali Bhai came from three main sources. Smack, Satta and Sharafath. Smack was brown sugar, or Diacetyl morphine or Heroin and Bali Bhai had controlled the trade amongst the capital’s two lac heroin addicts, most of them chasers, though a small percentage of them did indulge in intravenous abuse. Satta was the numbers betting game and a single and double digit lottery, the turnover of which touched almost a crore a day.
Sharafath in Hindi means decency. It was the decent folk who paid extortions and ransoms. Bali Bhai had converted kidnapping to a fine art. His first few victims were treated well and returned safely if the ransom was paid. In the rare case where the victim’s relative went to the Police, the victim was killed without second thoughts. This had sent clear signals all throughout; it was safer and better to pay. Going to the Police only caused trouble. And once Bali Bhai and the Nazi had their reputation, they did not even need to do a kidnap operation. A simple threat to kidnap would be enough to produce enough terror and the ransom would be silently paid. On occasions they would have misjudged the affluence of the victim and would have placed an un-fulfillably high demand. In such cases it was reasonable to tell your troubles and ask for a concession which was invariably agreed to. On a very rare occasion when the phone call did not produce the desired result or if the Police was informed, the victim would be actually kidnapped.
They would not do it immediately. The victim would be alert and so would be the cops. They waited till there was a lull in the situation and stuck at the most unexpected occasion. In Bali Bhai’s time the victim was shot in his chest and his body dumped in the streets to send a message to the future and intended victims. After Bali Bhai’s death, when the Nazi took over, he added to touch of macabre by chopping off the legs of a defiant victim and spreading a rumor that the legs had been detached while the victim was alive and screaming. The terror quotient was complete and no further resistance was encountered.
At that time the England cousin HD joined the Nazi, the latter was having a smoothly run business but not quiet efficient. The organization was too huge and the over heads were heavy, expenses were immense and the net profits were not too remarkable. But once the lad from England joined the business, he changed everything. He implemented systems and procedures. He found out the lacunae and bridged the gaps. He quickly located the areas of pilferage in the drug trade and plugged them. HD located that 75% of the boys in the smack distribution channel were drug addicts themselves. Thus almost as much stuff as was sold was consumed on the way. He changed all this by reshuffling the responsibilities. On his suggestion, the entire numbers team was put into the drug business. The boys were clearly told that if anyone of them was caught chasing or fixing he would be fired on the spot. They did not want dopeys to handle the drugs. This single stroke achieved two positive factors. The number boys over the years had developed their own system of cheating the company. But when the druggies took over, all the old channels were stopped and the numbers revenue suddenly jumped up. The smack revenue too followed suit because the boys had to buy the stuff if they wanted to use it.
HD also located a serious flaw in the extortion and kidnap threat racket. And this was the bargaining that had come into vogue. The Nazi and his team would make a rough assessment of the affluence of his intended victim and then make their phone call. But of late most of the victims would cry foul and tell the don that his demand was excessive and they could only afford half or a third!
To buy this book contact
Banana Books
352 Triplicane High Road Triplicane Chennai 600005
India
Phones 044-28544294 +919840070711
Email geeye_gasokan@yahoo.co.in
Back to main page