Dongri to Dubai

S.Hussain Zaidi’s Dongri to Dubai is a gripping read. This however, is not a review. You can read two of the better reviews of Dongri to Dubai here and here. The book is exhaustive and informative, immaculately researched and put together. Not in the form of a dossier but in a fairly dramatic narrative sequence. The story is about how a boy from Dongri became a don in Dubai.It captures his bravado, cunningness, focus, ambition, lust for power, and in doing so; it is chronicling the history of the Bombay underworld.

The book is information laden and as you read, you realise that  building an empire like D-Company is not a mean feat that Dawood has achieved. Not for nothing is he figured in the 50 most influential people in the world. He has successfully out manoeuvred his rivals till now with tacit and explicit support from various powers to be makes interesting revelations about the system in India. Dawood has played the system to his gains like a sly fox.

Instead of putting out an excerpt, i have put down some of the information that you would happen to come across if you go through the book.

• Haji Mastan alias Mastan Haider Mirza hails from Cuddalore, Tamilnadu, and he initially made it big in smuggling by being the blue-eyed-boy at the Bombay docks of Sheikh Mohammed al Ghalib, an Arab trading in Dubai and Eden.

• Mani Ratnam’s Nayakan (1987) starring Kamal Hasan and Vinod Khanna starrer Dayavan (1988), its Hindi remake, is based on another don from south –Varadarajan Mudaliar. Mudaliar's mainly operated in illicit liquor trade.

• Ibrahim Kaskar, Dawood’s dad is from Ratnagiri, Maharashtra and as Head Constable of Bombay Police held considerable clout. A devout pious man, Ibrahim Kaskar was respected for his honesty and integrity by peers and dons alike.

• Before he made D-company, he as an upcoming gangster headed the Young Party which was front for extortion when not celebrating Eid-e-milad and Eid-ul-fitr with gusto.

• Manya Surve shot Dawood’s elder brother Sabir Ibrahim Kaskar. Manya Surve was shot down by the Bombay police in its first ever encounter. Shootout at Wadala (2013) is an upcoming film in which the dreaded gangster Surve, an ardent James Hadley Chase fan is played by John Abraham.

• D-company mastered the art of smuggling cargo, gold and silver via the porous west coast of India into small port towns of Raigad, Alibaug and used the fishermen to execute their landing.

• Bada Rajan alias Rajan Nair used to steal typewriters and sell them off at Chor Bazaar, Mutton Street, while Chota Rajan alias Rajendra Nikhalje was a black marketer at Sahakar Cinema, Chembur. Chota Rajan rose through the ranks to be Dawood’s protégé and after a dramatic fallout, his bête noire and a man constantly on the run.

• The first time Dawood Ibrahim was arrested for smuggling was in 1982 under COFEPOSA , (Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Act) of the Customs Act.

• He fled Bombay to Dubai after the police got him on the wanted list for the murder of another Pathan mafia goon Samad Khan. Dawood, Ali Antulay, Chhota Rajan had killed him by spraying bullets at him in an elevator on Oct 4, 1984.

• Dawood Ibrahim actually made his company cosmopolitan and recruited people without any religious bias. Infact he is hardly a practising Muslim. It is a hatred filled Tiger Memon who has masterminded and orchestrated the Bombay Serial Blasts in 1993.

• According to some, Dawood suggested Tiger Memon’s name to ISI, so that Memom gets entangled with the law and abandon his flourishing smuggling business. Dawood and Memon were cordial but Dawood never entertains a rival. If this anecdote is true, it was indeed a masterstroke as Memon fled India never to return.

Today, the Indian governments’ D Dossier identifies Dawood Ibrahim no longer as just an underworld don, but a shipping magnate, media baron, drug trafficker, arms trafficker, and the CEO of a huge corporate called D-Company, all rolled into one.

The forgotten 1980's

Why is the 80’s forgotten decade?

It can’t be said that 80’s weren’t eventful.

We had an Asiad, put a man in space ,had a high profile assassination of Indira Gandhi ,became world champions for the first time at anything at Lords, the discovery of precocious child prodigies in V.Anand and Sachin Tendulkar, the birth of people’s car Maruti, smuggling and the rise of Dubai and Sharjah , and the end of cold war.

The eighties had countless kitschy and loud movies but also Jaane bhi do Yaaron and independent filmmaking. It had Hum Log,Fauji,and Wagle ki Duniya .The 80’s gave Bofors and scams, Rubik’s cube, Betamax tapes, the VCR,Walkman and audio cassettes, styroprints leotards, disco lights,Madonna ,Farrah Fawcett hair styles,Pacman ,Super Mario Brothers.Its not that nothing happened ,but still it is not romaticised as the 70s and neither is it seen as a decade of significance and harbinger of change as the 90’s.The eighties are seen as regressive and decadent and frowned upon .

I recently read in Times that the 1970’s are paid tribute because the people in power or making films belonged to that era. Isn’t it enough with the tributes..maybe they just are fascinated by the sensory things like el Camino cars and polyester shirts nylon stockings and bell bottom pants.

The reason probably that is because the 80’s is sandwiched between the 70s which is seen as the era of retro-glossed and candyflossed over and again in films and 90s which is just too close in memory to be classified as yesteryears. In India atleast the 80s is a dark decade, still chugging at along the Hindu rate of growth ;where somehow things were just not the same and they would never be the same.

A huge portion of India was born in the eighties and raised to puberty in the nineties. See even fashion changes every 25-30 years -its cyclical .So that ways it’s about time the 80’s make an appearance.

Asking for sixties is too far fetched, but the portrayal of eighties and its identity and characteristics is deserved .In fact there is a lacunae and an opportunity to produce something really new. There was a Tamil film called ‘Subramaniapuram’ in 2008 that was beautifully set in the eighties and one of the biggest hits in Tamil that year .Arvind Adiga’s between the assassinations is a novel that is set in the eighties .Another such idea is –the rise of Dawood Ibrahim.‘Once upon a time in Mumbai’ and the even better but under appreciated Vishram Sawant's ‘D’ left off Dawood’s story in the 70’s when he snatched power .How he spread and magnified his presence is a story yet to be told...why not carry it forward into the eighties.

Oh Sharjah!

The Sharjah Stadium, holder for hosting the maximum number of ODI’s, added another feather to its illustrious cap when it became the first venue in the world to host 200 one day internationals. Sharjah, which hosted its first match in 1984, was built painstakingly in edifice and reputation by Abdul Rehman Bukhatir, reached the milestone in 24 years(1986-2010) should have reached it much earlier.

On Feb. 18, Sharjah breached the milestone, with the ODI between, can you believe Afghanistan Canada!! It’s a shame that 200 was reached via a match of extremely low significance .Although I must add that it was a thriller of a match that the Afghans won by 1 run. Sharjah entertained, true to its DNA.

Sharjah also has the unique distinction of having two tied games in, the last one between Pakistan and Sri Lanka which I saw live. It is also the venue of that last ball six by Javed Miandad in Australasia cup finals v India in 1986, which established the legend of the venue. An oasis in the gulf.

But for me, Sharjah now is synonymous with the Coca-Cola Cup 1998, which gave us the stage for Sachin Tendulkar’s back-to-back invaluable gems

The Sandstorm innings (143) and the Birthday innings (134), the day after against the Australians. It was something else those innings, magical, impervious batting.

I remember reading in the papers the next day after the sandstorm innings -

India lost ,Australia won and Sachin won.

India as a policy has stopped playing at neutral venues after the Hansie Cronje match fixing scandal broke .So since 2000, it doesn’t go to earlier popular venues -Toronto, Abu Dhabi, Nairobi, Singapore or Sharjah. However India did play a tri-series in Kuala Lumpur in 06’with the West Indies and Australia. And India not coming to Sharjah is the worst thing to have happened to the stadium. It may be play quasi host of Pakistan, but unless India plays, the money and enthusiasm will not come easily.

Also,over the last decade, it's thunder has been stolen by more enterprising emirates –

Dubai’s Sport City Stadium and Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Stadium .Sharjah would have continued to be one of the leading international venues had it wouldn’t have become such a hotbed for bookies and a haven for fixed matches. By conservative estimates, 20 % of the matches were fixed. No big surprise that.

After all, it was Dawood Ibrahim’s backyard in the 80’s where famously he was photographed in the stadium aisle with his associates and also yesteryear starlet Mandakini. For years that is the only archival footage that intelligence agencies had of him.

Sharjah was a stadium started with noble intentions (it has an ex- cricketers beneficiary fund), flourished immensely leaving MCG and SCG far behind and then fell victim, almost inevitably to the match fixing fiasco and its aftermath and the subsequent economics of cricket politics.