Sapna was famous, while Ashraf was just another woman. This is why I first mentioned Sapna to you both, because I thought you would have heard about her.
Today, she has made of me what she became after her husband’s murder. Yes, I have promised revenge. I won’t spare Dawood or Shakeel. I have more reason to destroy them now. I want to see her dream fulfilled through my own hands.
When we finally get up to leave, Ustara leads us to the door. ‘It was nice meeting you, write something good about me. I am tired of bad publicity,’ he says.
Vikram laughs. ‘Yes, you are an interesting man after all, with many interesting tales.’
‘Of course, my life has been an adventure.’
We are barely out the door when I stop and ask if he has a photograph of Sapna.
Ustara looks at me suspiciously for a moment or two, and then, pointing at his heart, he says, ‘I carry this dream in my heart. She is here .. . isn’t she beautiful?’
EPILOGUE
M
ohammad Hussain Shaikh alias Ustara could not fulfil his promise of avenging Ashraf s brutal death. Ustara was one of the most sophisticated gunmen in the Mumbai mafia, and was at all times flanked by half-adozen excellent sharpshooters. But Ustara’s love for the company of beautiful women inevitably paved the way for his end. Often, the mad surge of lust made him reckless and negligent.
He liked to keep his flings discreet, so Ustara avoided taking his men on his visits to women. What he failed to take into account was that his rivals were not oblivious to his movements, as also his decision to take them on. Chhota Shakeel had set a chain of spies on Ustara. The plan was simple: to wait for an opportunity to strike when Ustara was off guard.
On the evening of 11 September 1998, Ustara asked his men not to follow him. He took his guns and drove out in a grey DCM Daewoo Cielo from his den in Bapurao Pathe Marg. As he reached his girlfriend’s house near Nagpada, the message was relayed to Shakeel in Karachi, who immediately asked his men to assemble and ambush Ustara, Within an hour, the men had taken their positions.
When Ustara exited the building, eyewitnesses later recounted, he didn’t look around but headed straight towards his car. The men who were waiting for him decided that this was their moment. Eight men whipped out their guns and showered a volley of bullets on Ustara. It is not known how many rounds were fired but over twenty rounds mowed Ustara down and the rest punched holes in his car. It was over in a matter of seconds. Ustara neither had time to see his assailants nor could he draw his own favourite German Mauser. Ironically, Ustara had been proud of his ability to cock the gun and fire in three seconds.
The cops later filed a report that eight men were seen firing bullets at Ustara. Four of them had come on two bikes, two had come on a scooter and two in a Maruti van. In a rare occurrence in a gangland shootout, an AK-47 was used to kill Ustara. It seemed the men were armed to the teeth, indicating that even if Ustara had managed to put up a fight, he would have had no chance of surviving the attack.
Ustara was rushed to J.J. Hospital where he was declared dead on admission.
Chapter 1
DRUG BARONNESS OF
REAY ROAD
S
onapur Lane, also called Sonapur Galli, is just a stone’s throw away from the Reay Road railway station. Some thousand shanties nestle here, a nesting ground for crime and disease.
The ‘sona’ in Sonapur is in no way related to ‘gold’; it, in fact, refers to ‘death’ or ‘sleep’, because of several Muslim graveyards in the vicinity. But, for one woman in this otherwise nondescript residential hub of Mumbai’s underbelly, the area did bring gold and untold wealth. Jyoti Adiramalingam, aka Jyoti amma, is the reigning godmother of the area. She is the one who lays down the rules and she alone has the authority to bend them.
According to the dossiers of the Narcotics Control Bureau and the Anti-Narcotics Cell, Jyoti is one of the many small yet dominant cogs in the humongous machine of the Rs 1,000-crore drug trafficking industry in Mumbai.The forty-six-year-old is considered to be one of the most feared drug baronesses.
A Sunday cover story on the role of women in the narco-industry took me to Sonapur Galli. Jyoti was fresh out of prison at the time, after having served a four-and-a-half year sentence in Mumbai’s Byculla Women’s Jail.
On entering the lane, I saw a long line of similar-looking shanties abutting each other. The huts were made of plywood and asbestos sheets, and roofed with tarpaulin covers and plastic sheets. I knew that Jyoti lived in Room No. 70. Oddly, though, most huts in the lane seemed to have No. 70 painted on their doors. I discovered later that this was a ploy to confuse the police so the godmother would have time to escape.
Meanwhile, I had to track down the real No. 70. I was looking around for someone to guide me to Jyoti when I felt a heavy hand on my back. I turned to confront a female version of the Incredible Hulk staring straight at me.
The woman was wearing a pale-coloured sari and was gigantic, with beefy hands. Her ears were adorned with several pairs of diamond earrings, her arms with thick gold bangles, and her neck with chains. The feature that struck me most, though, was her eyebrows, which met below a huge circular red bindi.
It took me a few seconds to realise I was standing in front of Jyoti.
I was suddenly a little nervous; I recalled rumours I’d heard about her beating up a constable at the sessions court during the hearing of one of her drug-peddling cases.It was Jyoti who finally broke the silence. ‘Kaun hai tu? Kya mangta hain?’ (Who are you? What do you want?)
I clutched my handbag and took a deep breath to ease the feeling of fear that had overtaken me.
‘I am a social worker,’ I lied, knowing she wouldn’t talk to me if I told her I was a journalist. ‘I need five to ten minutes of your time. Can we talk here or ...?’ I replied in Hindi. Her cold blood-shot eyes looked straight into me and she sized me up. After what seemed like an eternity, she nonchalantly said, ‘Come home.’
I followed her as she led me to her shanty. A thin curtain served as a door in her one-storey wooden shack. The room we walked into was dark with hardly any furniture barring a bed, a television set and a fridge. There was no one else in the room. Jyoti offered me a stool and proceeded to sprawl on the bed, which creaked under her weight.
‘I am preparing a report on women who have been tortured and harassed by the police ...’ I began tentatively.
‘Hmm ... So what do you want to know?’ she snapped.
‘About your business ...’
‘Why is a social worker interested in what I do?’ she interjected almost immediately.
I squirmed a little in my seat, while trying to prepare a convincing answer.
‘I’ve heard that you used to deal with drugs, due to which you were arrested on several occasions. Has the police ever harassed you during this time?’
‘Have you met other women who have been subject to police harassment?’
I realised that while I had come here to ferret information from her, Jyoti was subtly extracting information about me with a barrage of counter-questions. This was going to be more difficult than I’d thought.
‘I have interviewed three to four women. Their case has already been taken forward,’ I said.
A blanket of unnerving silence followed, which to my relief, was broken by the chugging of a train as it hurtled passed the Reay Road railway station in the vicinity.
‘Did you really deal in drugs?’ I continued, trying to elicit some response.
She looked at me for a few seconds and then finally answered.
‘I became a drug peddler to feed my six children. My husband was unemployed and would drink every day. I needed the money to raise my children. But I stopped it long ago. Now I make idlis and dosas for a living.’
It was hard to imagine any idli-dosa seller being able to deck herself with so much gold.
‘But according to the cops, you still sell drugs?’
‘Those cops are bloody liars,’ she sna
rled. ‘Small fry like us always get convicted but big sharks manage to dodge the law and remain elusive. They outsmart the whole judicial machinery,’ she said.
‘This means that there is someone bigger than you ..
‘Who said I am big? The real godmother is still unreachable. The law hasn’t been able to convict her and the prosecution hasn’t been able to put her behind bars.’
‘Who is she?’ I asked.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘So that our NGO can help her out too ...’
Jyoti grinned and in a mocking tone, said, ‘She doesn’t need your help. Go to her if you ever need any favours.’
‘She seems influential.’
‘Yes, the Tamil community at Sion Koliwada reveres her. She is named after our goddess.’
‘What is her name?’ I tried prodding her one last time.
She darted a cold stare at me. ‘Bacchi, you ask too many questions.’
For some reason, I was unflustered by her daunting demeanour; my curiosity was getting the better of me.
Durga, Parvati, Saraswati, Lakshmi, Devi... the names ran through my head.
‘Is it Parvati?’ I hazarded a guess.
Jyoti grinned and pointed with her fat fingers to a framed picture of a goddess that hung just above the television set. The goddess was draped in a red sari and had four hands.
‘Mahalaxmi,’ she said.
Beyond this, she refused to divulge any more information on this mystery woman. On my way out, I spotted Jyoti’s eldest daughter Asha Tamilsaran Yadav, who had been eavesdropping on our conversation. I had met her two weeks back at the police station. It was she who had given me Jyoti’s address. According to the police dossiers, after two decades of successful drug-pushing, Jyoti had handed over the reigns of her business to her twenty-five-year-old daughter Asha.
‘Who was your mother talking about?’ I asked.
‘Mahalaxmi Papamani,’ she replied.
Chapter 2
POLITE PRESSURE
A
loud thud on the door roused him from his Sunday siesta. Disoriented, he lifted his head and looked at the wall clock. It was 3.30 p.m. Thinking he might have imagined the sound, he dug his face back into the pillow but a second later, the banging started again, and this time it didn’t stop. He hurriedly scrambled out of his bed, to find his main door shaking from the force with which it was being knocked on.
‘Who is it?’ he asked brusquely.
There was no response from the other end but the banging continued.
‘Wait, wait, I’m coming. Be patient. ‘His head was still heavy, so he ran into his bathroom, splashed some cold water on his face and rushed back to open the door. Since the Hindu-Muslim riots and the subsequent serial blasts in Mumbai, the mood in the city had been tense. Was it bad news, he wondered as he unlocked the door. He took a step back immediately. Before him stood about thirty men, all dressed in shirts and lungis.
He rushed back inside his one-room tenement and towards the window to call for help, only to stop short. A large number of men and women were squatting on the footpath opposite his building and staring right at his home. Before he could move, the entire pack of men in the passageway had entered his house. He suddenly felt powerless and began sweating. He quickly scanned the men in front of him to check if they were carrying any weapons. To his relief, none of them seemed to have anything with them. Why were they here? What did they want? As a prominent lawyer in Mumbai’s legal circuit, with a good number of successful narco trials at the very onset of his career, Ayaz Khan was a source of envy for his colleagues and enemies alike. Several had been eager to see his flourishing career quashed. Ayaz now began to wonder if these people were there at the behest of one of his enemies.
‘What is all this?’ he asked the men, the fear audible in his voice.
‘Amma ko police uthake le gayi (The police has picked up our mother),’ one of them said, in accented Hindi.
‘Kiski amma? (Whose mother),’ he asked, taken aback.
‘Hum sabki amma (All of ours),’ the same man responded and shoved some papers in his hand. He seemed to be the leader of the group.
Ayaz calmly handed back the papers. ‘See, I don’t entertain people at my home. Come to the court tomorrow,’ he said.
‘We won’t harm you. Just take up Amma’s case,’ one of them said, sensing Ayaz’s irritation.
‘The court is shut. I cannot do anything today.’
‘We only need an answer.’
‘First, get all your men out of here. I don’t want any tamasha. I will only speak to one man.’
Surprisingly, the leader of the group agreed at once. He spoke to his men in a language that Ayaz presumed was Tamil. Within a few minutes, everybody except for the leader had quietly disappeared from his home.
‘We know that you can help us. Amma wants you to fight her case. Don’t bother about the money, Amma has lots,’ the man said.
‘I will need all the details.’
The man handed Ayaz the stack of papers once again. Ayaz scanned through it briefly. ‘Get these papers and come to the court at 10 tomorrow morning.’
‘Thank you, saar. Amma will bless you,’ the man said, and fell at Ayaz’s feet.
Ayaz stepped back. ‘No, please don’t do all this. Just one request, don’t get all these men to court. Otherwise I won’t be able to get your Amma out.’
The man nodded and left.
Ayaz was at the sessions court early the next day. As a specialist in narcotics-related cases, he had heard a lot about Mahalaxmi Papamani through both his colleagues and the cops. She had been in the news on more than one occasion. For someone who had started off as a small-time peddler, Papamani had acquired quite a notorious reputation in Mumbai’s drug scene. Ayaz couldn’t wait to share the experience of his first brush with the Papamani menace with his lawyer friends.
The sessions court building in Kalaghoda, home to hundreds of lawyers and paralegals, comprises several civil and criminal courtrooms connected by labyrinthine alleys and rows of stairs. Ayaz had reached the first floor when three women stopped him. They were dressed in gaudy saris and had red and yellow bindis on their foreheads.
‘Saar, Mahalaxmi Papamani’s case ... ’
‘Oh, yes,’ Ayaz said, not the least surprised. ‘Where is the man who came to my house yesterday?’ he asked sarcastically.
‘He doesn’t handle court-related work. Amma has chosen us as her advisors. We know the law and will guide you in this case.’
Ayaz couldn‘t hold back a smile. ‘No, don’t bother. Give me the papers and I will handle everything.’
But the women didn’t move; instead they made Ayaz sit down and hear them out. Twenty minutes into the conversation, Ayaz had learnt his lesson: appearances could be deceptive. These women were actually well-read legal functionaries of Papamani. They knew the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act by rote. In fact, they actually enlightened Ayaz about the technical loopholes in the prosecution’s case. Even before meeting her, Ayaz was impressed with the team of brain and brawn that Papamani had gathered around her.
Later that afternoon, the women took Ayaz to the Anti-Narcotics Cell lock-up, located inside the Esplanade Court compound, to meet Mahalaxmi. The compound—which also houses the Azad Maidan police station—is always bustling with lawyers, policemen, criminals and media persons. The small lock-up faces the outside and passersby can look in.
When Ayaz reached the ANC office, he could not resist throwing a glance at the lock-up. He wanted to get his first glimpse of the woman who had such clout over the lower echelons of Tamil society in Mumbai.
‘Where is Mahalaxmi?’ he asked the women who had accompanied him.
The shortest among the three pointed out to a swarthy woman, sitting stoically on a wooden stool. A young girl stood beside her, fanning her with a newspaper, while an old woman pressed her legs. Even though she was behind bars, there was a serene and unflustered expression on her fac
e.
‘Amma,’ one of the women who had come with Ayaz called out.
On hearing the familiar voice, she turned towards them. And then shifted her gaze to Ayaz, the lawyer who would be fighting her case.
Chapter 3
FROM RAGS TO RICHES
M
ahalaxmi Papamani—the wealthiest drug baroness in Mumbai and revered by Tamilians from the lower classes—had very humble beginnings. She was the daughter of a labourer and construction worker from the Salem district of Tamil Nadu.
Born to Periaswamy and Meenakshi in 1960, Papamani spent most of her childhood in a slum on Shivaji Road in Bangalore, along with her three siblings, Naathan, Mohan and Yashoda. Given that the family lived hand-to-mouth, none of the four children was able to receive an education.
In 1980, Papamani relocated to Mumbai. Apparently the relocation was part of Tamilian don Vardharajan Muniswami Mudaliar’s plan to build a mini-Tamil Nadu in Mumbai. Vardharajan, or Vardha bhai as he was known, owned an illicit hooch liquor distillery (khaadi) at Sion-Koliwada in central Mumbai. He had quite a following among south Indians, having brought hordes of men from the poverty-stricken regions of Salem to work in his khaadi, even as the women were employed in red-light areas. Over several years, the Tamilians started settling in makeshift homes around Sion-Koliwada and, consequently, the slum came into being. Papamani became one of Vardha’s most favoured companions. Because of her proximity to the don, men and women in the Sion-Koliwada area treated her with respect.
However, with prohibition being lifted in the ’80s and the simultaneous decline of Vardharajan, Papamani’s fortunes plummeted. The same people who once looked at her with awe now turned their backs on her.
With no one to consider as family, Papamani was suddenly left to fend for herself. However, her determination to survive helped her rise again. She started off as a rag-picker and then took to working as a domestic help in the Antop Hill neighbourhood until she met Mani Chinapayya Devendra, who allegedly peddled drugs before he started working as a helper in an edible oil company in Sewree.