The way he talked never made me feel that he ever even thought of putting his son at a point where you would say that he loves someone.
Sheela: He had some priorities in life. He wanted to be someone?
Sameera: He was not a family person. I never lived a life that I would say was a ‘married‘ life which means husband and wife sit together. We had never ever even eaten together. It was just about serving him and his life; sometimes he did not even want to see my face. I used to send his food with the servant. So people think I lived with him for fifteen years, but I didn’t live with him even a single minute or not even a married minute.
Sheela: Didn’t he ever tell you ‘I love you’ or ‘Abu loves you’, not even after he forcibly married you?
Sameera: No, he told me he wouldn’t have married if he didn’t love, as if saying that ‘I’ did something big for ‘you’. He said my eyes were on you and I married you and gave you a good house and car and clothes. Everything was always like ‘I’ have this right on ‘you’. He made me feel that even in front of a thousand people, I gave you this, I gave you food, I gave you drinks. I am into lots of sher–shairi recently.
Sheela: Yes, say?
Sameera: It’s like . . . the world’s at one’s feet and the feet are in chains, you know, I always portrayed myself like that.
Sheela: So, you had to face fourteen years of exile?
Sameera: I always felt that I had food, but I was not hungry because it killed me . . . I had clothes, but I never wore good clothes and everyone in Dubai knows that I was always simple. I never wore jewellery on my body.
Sheela: When he used to go to Dubai, one or two visits to Anis’s place took place. At that time, seeing him in that environment, what did you feel? Did he have a really powerful position?
Sameera: See, the things you are telling me about . . . I never went into that . . . environment where I could see him with others.
Sheela: No, but one is able to make sense of things?
Sameera: But when I was with the women, the women always had the priority that amongst all of us, Dawood’s wife, Anis’s wife, ‘we are somebody’ [that they were somebody] and ‘you women, your husbands work under us’; so when they work under them, ‘you work under us’ and that I could never take . . . sorry . . . I never had buttered them . . . when I had my son’s birthday, it was my son’s first birthday . . . I wanted to do it very nicely . . . He didn’t even bother to come to his son’s birthday. I didn’t even want him to. I had only my set of people who knew me as my son’s mother . . . there was not a single underworld person there.
Sheela: Did anyone threaten you after the separation from Dawood?
Sameera: I never had the time to even talk to them.
Sheela: When the phone came or when men were sent to your home, was there any threatening?
Sameera: They knew that I was there, but they knew indirectly. When Anis called up and he was indirectly interrogating me—‘where is your husband’—and all [that] bullshit because he [Salem] had this office and thus had his picture there. He asked for that picture and . . . tore it in anger. What they did was they sent all these people to my house, [saying] that they want the picture. Along with him, two of his brothers were also there, and all I told him was that you have come to take his picture, eight men to collect his photo, [for] just that bit of a photo eight men came. [They asked,] ‘Where was Abu Salem?’ I was very blunt, I said ‘Do you tell your wife where you go? How do you expect me to know where he is?’
Sheela: Mustaqim?
Sameera: Mustaqim, Moin, Riyaz and five other people . . . three–four people, they came in cars full of people.
Sheela: So, they all came to you and looked for the photo . . . Why did you say that Dawood was better?
Sameera: Because I was very mad and I think at that period of time . . . (Chhota) Shakeel’s wife had some . . . I think she had a birthday party or something. Something that she wanted to call me for. She called me. Shakeel’s wife and Anis’s wife never got along well . . . they both fight among themselves.
Sheela: Power play among wives?
Sameera: In my lifetime I would write a story on all the wives, how they lived . . . so she wanted to call me, she knew I never went much to many places but it was niyaaz (religious function) or something, so she forced me, that I would definitely have to go . . . she called me up and said all these things and I was mad at that point of time. So she said, ‘Okay . . . I’ll talk to him . . . This is not the way to behave.’ And then I got a call from Shakeel: ‘What happened?’ I said, ‘I have never been a party to any of your things, you know me, how I am, the way I have lived . . . Have I ever interfered with your life or anybody’s life or even been there to butter or do something wrong? Or harm someone? I have nothing to do with all of this. I always stayed away from all of this, so . . . I don’t want anyone to come to my house because it is killing me from within myself . . .’ Then Dawood called up. He said, ‘What happened?› He assured me that ‘after this nobody will be at you . . .’ And he asked me: ‘What happened, what did he say?’ I said, ‘This is the way he talked with me . . . and I don’t agree to it.’
Sheela: Did you ask Dawood?
Sammmra: I told him directly: ‘Do you ever tell them (your wives), did you ever do these things to them? He said no. I said, ‘You should understand the way he talks to me, it kills me. Why not a different way (of talking), you know. Why do women come between your lines [conversation]? When men are there . . . why do you want to get any woman dragged into any of your things?’ And he respected that. He said, ‘I will make sure that nobody calls you . . .’ and after that no one ever did.
Sheela: That was the first and last time that you had a direct talk with him or did you talk to him directly earlier as well?
Sameera: No, this was the first time I talked to him, and after that, they (Dawood and Salem) again patched up. I don’t know how they patched up and then again they called it off . . . They patched up because Dawood had come to Dubai, I guess.
Sheela: So, again he called?
Sameera: He didn’t call me any time.
Sheela: You talked to him just once?
Sameera: Ya, ya, on the phone I just talked to him once . . . then he is very . . . if I compare with any other people . . . he had that respect . . . at least talking nicely on the phone and I told him, ‘See, whoever you are and I know you are Bhai, but I don’t respect you for what you are. As a human being just because you are older to me, I respect you, but if this is the way you behave, if this is the way your brother (Anis) behaves, do you think I would have any respect for him . . . Every man is there for their own action and they are respected due to their own action.’ Shakeel and Anis never got along with each other, never. No, I always see tension between the two women . . .
Sheela: Well, there used to be tension between their wives because the husbands did not get along?
Sameera: That’s what they told me, both of them.
Sheela: Well . . . meaning Shakeel’s wife would tell you?
Sameera: I have done so much for him, and what does she think of herself? That whoever’s man he was, she was everything. She did not even know how to talk. I taught her how to talk properly.
Sheela: But tell me, what would you do at the parties?
Sameera: Nothing, I used to sit at one place and leave in half an hour.
Sheela: Did Abu ever tell you how to behave, how to talk at those parties?
Sameera: Oh yes. ‘Don’t be that rude and blunt.’ ‘You don’t know how to talk to people.’
Sheela: Yes?
Sameera: He was too much into it. I never pushed him to let me go to any parties and he never pushed me. I always made excuses.
Sheela: So, you want to say that after your forced marriage, the married life you enjoyed was no married life at all?
Sameera: No.
Sheela: Even after that, why did you go on for so long?
Sameera (laughing): I was stretching his soul
.
Sheela: Did he hit you?
Sameera: I have many stitches here (points to her forehead).
Sheela: Hit you?
Sameera: He had beaten me up in Dubai so much. He wanted to kill me also.
Sheela: How? Did he hit you with his hand?
Sameera: It was at a stage where the doctor said that ‘if you would have been brought late, you could have been dead’.
Sheela: That means you kept quiet because of physical abuse?
Sameera: I could say that they threatened my family. I have gone through a lot of physical abuse, even Monica has gone through a lot of abuse . . . perhaps what she saw in two years and two days, you multiply it by fifteen years to [get] what I saw.
Sheela: Did he abuse you after he was drunk?
Sameera: No, he never drank in front of me.
Sheela: Then why did he hit you’?
Sameera: Because I used to . . . (affect) his soul.
Sheela: You used to argue with him?
Sameera: I was not arguing. I used to always tell him the truth. [I used to tell him] ‘What would you get? Exactly what would you get by doing this to me?’
Sheela: And?
Sameera: I always came to conclusions that he was somewhere psychic or psycho.
Sheela: But you left for Dubai and later came to America?
Sameera: He used to hit me here as well.
Sheela: But you could have called for the police here?
Sameera: You don’t understand. He had that power over me. My family is right there in India . . . I can’t do even the smallest thing until and unless he is behind bars. And I know if he comes out, I’d be the first one that he wants to kill.
Sheela: Oh God! You think that?
Sameera: It’s not the question of thinking, I somehow know it.
Twenty-Eight
Monica the Turncoat
‘I AM SINGLE AND UNMARRIED,’ MONICA told Judge C.V. Subramanyam at the Hyderabad court. Her statement shocked everyone. Salem, not least of all.
Clearly, Monica had made a firm decision to break away from Salem. At some point of time during their incarceration in Lisbon, the realization had apparently dawned on her that she did not have to always be Salem’s moll. She was only in her thirties and had her entire life ahead of her. She had spent the last six years in notoriety and ignominy—the first three of them running from the law, hiding from the law enforcers, taking refuge behind fake identities and then another three years behind bars. Humiliation and taunts were her constant companions from Lisbon to India. In prison, she had tried to delude herself at first, clinging on to Salem, crafting romantic and erotic letters. But it was not long before she saw the futility of it all. In her quest and desire for fame, she had landed herself in an abyss of infamy.
Soon after Salem and Monica landed in Mumbai, the mafia don was produced in the TADA court in Mumbai for his role in the serial blasts, while Monica was taken to Hyderabad by the CBI sleuths to investigate her involvement in the forged passport case. During the investigation, she denied procuring a fake passport in the name of Sana Kamil Malik, even though she was arrested in Lisbon using this identity. Her passport indicated that she had furnished her documents from Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh and had also signed on the papers personally. Monica was subsequently lodged at the women’s prison in Chanchalguda Jail in Hyderabad.
Monica was remanded to judicial custody, but her imprisonment and the hearings in a Hyderabad court were not the end of her troubles. The Bhopal Police were keen on getting her too. After all, she was also accused of using a forged passport issued in Bhopal under the name of Fauzia Usman, while Salem used the identity of Danish Beg. The Bhopal Police wanted to begin interrogating her from the very day after her judicial custody in Hyderabad ended.
Monica spent those last months of 2005 and early 2006 shuttling between Bhopal and Hyderabad until she was convicted after a trial that lasted a relatively lightning-quick two and a half months. On 10 February 2006, Monica was sentenced to five years of imprisonment in the passport forgery case by the CBI special court in Hyderabad. She was shattered at the verdict, bursting into tears when it was pronounced.
During the course of the trial, Monica was allowed to attend proceedings in designer clothes and eat homemade food. But all these perks were quickly withdrawn as soon as she was convicted. She was given the choice of wearing a salwar kameez or a white saree and blue blouse. She chose the saree-and-blouse combination and received three sets, which she was expected to wash by herself. She was not Monica Bedi the starlet any more. She was now a prisoner, something she had never pretended to be in any of the twenty films that featured her.
The jail housed 330 prisoners and Monica was prisoner number 103. Since the jail was meant only for women prisoners, undertrials and convicts were housed in the same facility. Monica was shifted from the undertrial section to the barracks meant for convicts. Extremely depressed, she spent the first day crying in a corner of the barracks. As a convict, Monica was supposed to choose a trade in jail. She was expected to work in either the unit making incense sticks, candles and tooth powder or try her hand at stitching clothes through which she would earn Rs 10–15 daily, allowing her to buy some food from the canteen.
Monica might have laughed had she not been so crushed. A measly Rs 15 for eight long hours of hard labour? She was reminded of how she would leave tips to valets or waiters worth many multiples of the sum that was now her daily wage. She was used to earning lakhs of rupees from her film assignments and spending thousands of dollars on shopping trips in Europe. But there was now no option, and Monica, with some degree of forbearance, took on the role of a working prisoner. She began to work and mingle with the other prisoners. In the meantime, her lawyers assured her that they would appeal against the conviction.
It was about a month after her conviction that Monica Bedi’s life took another turn, this time for the better. She was at work when she was told that she had a visitor. Tears rolled down her cheeks when she found out who it was. It had been four years since Dr Prem Bedi had met his daughter—the last time had been with Salem in Oslo. He had had to move an application and seek special permission from the court to meet her, but he had been successful. Monica recalled all those times her father had warned her against joining the film industry. She had stubbornly ignored those warnings. She apologized profusely. A dam had broken and she just could not stop. Needless to say, Dr Bedi forgave her. The meeting lasted barely thirty minutes, but it infused a new hope in Monica.
When he walked out of the jail, Dr Bedi addressed the media. ‘My daughter is innocent. I will do my best to get her acquitted,’ he said.
Nothing drives humans more than hope and Monica was no exception. She grew more hopeful after her father’s visit and began to look forward to life after her sentence. Every day was drudgery but Monica kept a brave front. She found out soon that her father had taken up her cause and had begun supporting her in the long appeal process; this bolstered her morale.
Soon after Dr Bedi’s appeal against the verdict of the CBI court, things started looking up for Monica. The Andhra Pradesh High Court reduced her jail term from five years to three. Monica’s father moved for bail in the CBI special court that had asked for her passport. When she said she had lost her passport in Lisbon, the bail was rejected. Subsequently, she approached the Supreme Court where she was granted bail. However, despite the apex court granting her bail in May 2006, her lawyers had to reckon with a pending case in Bhopal. This took another two months to sort out.
Eighteen months after being convicted—a whole five years since her arrest in Lisbon—Monica was released from jail on 4 July 2007. She emerged from prison accompanied by her father and lawyers. To her surprise, hundreds of people and scores of reporters and television crew had gathered outside the jail to catch a glimpse of her. The police had a tough time handling the swelling crowd. It was a stampede-like situation outside the Chanchalguda Jail.
The presence of crowds and the
media left Monica stunned. A dozen microphones were thrust on her face. As she began to speak, those watching could see it was the ultimate aphrodisiac. She had wanted fame all her life and she knew she would be on national television networks all day. She spoke confidently, but kept her answers simple.
‘I am very happy today. Finally, I have got justice. I am thankful to God. I will now spend some time with my family,’ Monica said.
‘I have learnt a big lesson,’ she added. ‘Earlier, I would trust everyone thinking that everybody is nice. Now I will be careful.’
The reporters and television crew surmised that this remark was meant for Abu Salem. What she said next was a major revelation to everyone. ‘I am getting offers from Hindi and Telugu films. I am excited to come back to acting after a long time. I was missing acting in films. I plan to settle down in Hyderabad to act in Telugu films.’
There was thunderous applause and whistles from the crowd. The policemen, struggling to keep the jostling crowds at bay, were incredulous. For the men in uniform, she was an accomplice to one of the most notorious dons in India. The media had extensively reported on her efforts to evade the law for years. The courts had convicted her and she had served time in prison. Yet, the media was going crazy over her.
‘I am sure this time I will make it. I will be careful in choosing films, producers and directors. I will only accept lead roles in films,’ Monica said, perhaps implying that she would shun producers and directors with links to the underworld.
Finally, a reporter gathered courage and asked her how she had got involved with Abu Salem. This interrupted the flow of her speech. The smile on her face evaporated; Monica paused, gathered herself and said, ‘It is over. I am looking forward to the future.’ Her lawyers and family members hurriedly called off the impromptu press conference and got into the waiting cars.
Monica and her family left for Delhi to travel to her village Chabbewal in Punjab, where another rousing welcome awaited her.