Sufi - The Invisible Man of The Underworld

by Aabid Surti

  Ganpat and the clerk returned, having had their tea. Khan followed them, keeping a watch. Iqbal was sitting in a nearby Sher-e-Punjab hotel with a glass of lassi, thinking fast.

  The ship from Dubai was to arrive the next day. Nine post parcels containing smuggled watches were also expected. The information had leaked out and yet he had to recover the watches. If he succeeded, he would have outwitted Khan. The big question was – would he turn out to be the victor or the vanquished?

  Chapter 37

  Sitting in the rented godown at Dongri, Iqbal was thinking seriously. He saw with utter clarity that the snare of the customs and the DRI officials was closing around him. Between the two, the DRI was more dangerous.

  He had received a severe beating at the hands of Khan a few months ago; but that had become a provocation rather than cause for fear. Had Khan not beaten him up mercilessly, he might have started a new lawful business after retiring from the prawn marketing. “It’s all a matter of destiny.” Iqbal heaves a sigh even today, looking up at the sky.

  If there was anything special in the godown other than a table and three chairs, it was a telephone. Ghostly cobwebs were swinging from the high ceiling.

  The boxes containing the contraband watches were stored here but for a short period. (DK usually used an apartment for this purpose.) All the goods had to be disposed of at the earliest, which meant within twenty-four hours.

  This was done very systematically. For example, take the post office. As soon as a pile of letters arrived, it was immediately sorted out and different postmen lifted the post of their respective sections and started off for delivery. Iqbal had made somewhat similar arrangements for the disposal of the contraband watches. (He had learned the tricks of the trade from gold smuggling.)

  Two elders from the community entered the godown, interrupting his thinking. For a few seconds, he could not make out who these gentlemen were. He had never seen them before.

  “Please be seated,” he said, as a thought flashed through his mind.

  Pressure for marriage had been mounting on him too for the past several months and he had so far managed to wriggle out. However, never before had the kinsmen of a girl visited his den.

  Just as the senior members in my family were fed up with my dillydallying, the elders in Iqbal’s family too were fed up with his excuses. Their argument was – Who would give their daughter to the younger brothers if Iqbal refused to settle down. Besides, there would be a social stigma attached to the family if the eldest remained single. Society would not believe that if Iqbal refused to marry, it was because he did not want to wreck a girl’s life.

  As was the tendency, society would find fault with him. “Surely, there must be some failing in the boy, else why would he refuse to marry?” (The same question was flaunted before me as I too had a younger brother.)

  Once a stigma got stamped onto the family, the younger brothers too would have to remain single all their lives. If by sheer chance, a proposal came, it wouldn’t be from an upright family.

  Iqbal’s mother had discussed the problem with the kinsmen, chosen a girl and told him, “By profession she is a teacher and from a good family. To get such a girl for a wife one has to be blessed. Be wise, be polite, grab the opportunity.”

  Iqbal chuckled, recalling Gul Banu’s words. He was determined to bulldoze the proposal with a superior performance.

  Watching him smile alone, both the gentlemen looked at each other questioningly. Hope the boy is not crazy! Among the two, one was the girl’s father. The other was an uncle.

  When both the elders looked at him again, Iqbal grinned as if he had just come to his senses and asked them, “What’ll you have? Something hot or cold?”

  “Nothing, thanks anyway,” the girl’s father replied.

  “You have come for the first time, have at least tea.”

  “We just had it.”

  “Then have something cold,” he insisted and directed a tapori standing outside the godown to get two glasses of falooda.

  Both the senior citizens were pleased with Iqbal’s magnanimity. In fact, they had not hoped for anything other than tea. In five minutes, two glasses of ice-cold milk falooda were placed before them. Both the elders had a sip and the interview commenced.

  “What do you sell?” The girl’s father asked the first question, scanning the empty godown.

  Iqbal had been waiting for the inquest to start. Expressing surprise, he shot back. “The whole ghetto knows; didn’t anyone tell you?”

  Both the elders looked at each other once again. Perhaps, they needed some more time to understand the truth behind Iqbal’s question.

  “What does the ghetto know?”

  “My business.”

  “What is it?”

  The same moment, one of Iqbal’s toughies, Michael stormed in. “Boss,” he said enthusiastically, unmindful of the guests. “The secret is out.”

  “Yeah…?”

  “I’ve traced the stool pigeon who informed the DRI about us.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Your bum chum.”

  “But who?”

  “Ali.”

  Taking a spot decision, Iqbal opened the drawer. There was a jack knife inside it. It made seven clicking sounds while opening. He opened the knife in front of the elders and handed it over to Michael. “Cut that asshole to pieces so that he won’t rat on his friends again!” He thundered.

  Together with the elders, Michael’s eyes too widened. Iqbal had never taken such an extreme step in the past. Besides, Michael had come here hoping for a reward and instead he was given an assignment to bump off Ali. It was his duty to obey the master. He closed the knife, slid it into his pocket and went out.

  Iqbal did not need to explain any more, what business he was into. He brazenly looked at the elders. They lowered their eyes.

  The glasses of falooda were not yet half finished when the telephone bell screamed. He picked up the receiver, “Hello!”

  It was Dagdu on the line. He was saying, “Boss, the cops have seized one of our trucks at Mahim. Please see that the truck and its driver are released before the FIR is made.”

  “Who is the deputy officer?”

  “Bhonsle.”

  “Go there after ten minutes,” he said and cut the call.

  Next he called up the police station. The deputy officer told him that the truck had run over a pedestrian.

  “He won’t come back to life. But, we need to live together in this fragile world. Do you follow?” Iqbal said over the phone. “How can we survive without each other’s support?” The duty officer was wise. He got the message.

  Neglecting to finish the remaining falooda, both the elders were preparing to leave when Iqbal’s third colleague, Sadru, entered the scene like the villain of a Hindi movie.

  “That fucking Sindhi isn’t coughing up money.” His job was recovery. “Boss, I don’t know what to do with him.”

  “Break his legs.”

  Iqbal thought that a hint was enough for a sensible man. In fact, it was not just a hint, but a billboard. Yet, both the elders could not make up their minds about the prospective groom. They had been told that Iqbal was a devout person.

  “At least finish the falooda,” Iqbal entreated them, as they got up to leave.

  The two elders stopped for a while at the entrance of the godown and stepped out when they could not decide what to do next. Iqbal burst out laughing. The laughter proved very expensive to him. He was to be married to the same girl.

  Patting his own back, he once again focused his attention on the immediate problem. Smuggling watches through the transit post parcel had been very simple so far. While Iqbal had engaged Ganpat, the latter had involved two of his colleagues in the racket. Thus, there was a clique of three working inside the GPO.

  The ship from Dubai would anchor at the Bombay dock. The post parcels would be offloaded here first. From here the parcels were taken in a postal van to the Import Section of the foreign post office.


  After separating the local parcels, all the transit parcels were then shifted to the ‘Export Section’ on the third floor of the GPO. The Export Booking Section was located here and a staff of about twenty worked in it.

  Here the transit parcels for different countries were sorted out and kept in different piles. Ganpat Chalke was in charge of the transit parcels for Africa’s Seychelles port. The smuggled goods came in the parcels bound for this port only.

  Lest someone got suspicious, the parcels containing contraband goods carried the label ‘Surgical Instruments.’ These parcels would remain stored here until the ship for Seychelles anchored at the Bombay port. Sometimes it would take a week or so.

  During this period, Ganpat Chalke and his two colleagues would remain present on Sundays on the pretext of working overtime and with the permission of the superintendent. The super did not have any objection. On the contrary, he was pleased with Ganpat and his colleagues. Sometimes, he would even pat them in front of other employees to set an example, “Here are my dedicated, committed comrades.”

  On Sunday, Chalke along with his colleagues would swing into action. Undisturbed and in total peace, the work proceeded swiftly. First, they would carefully remove the packing ribbons from each parcel.

  This took maximum time because there was a lead seal on these ribbons. It was an art to remove the tin ribbons, keeping the seal intact. If the seal broke, their fate would be sealed, the conspiracy exposed.

  Once this delicate task was accomplished, they would tear apart the cloth of the parcel, open the box and extract the watches. Thereafter, stones of the same weight were filled in the empty box and the parcel was tied with ribbons along with the seal. (When the ship arrived, the same parcels with stones were dispatched to Seychelles.)

  Ganpat Chalke and his two colleagues would then deliver these contraband watches in postbags to Iqbal’s godown. Home delivery! Who would suspect a postman coming out of the GPO carrying a postbag?

  Let us now see what happened to the parcels of stones that were sent to Seychelles. In fact, these parcels had bogus addresses and so, the postal department of Seychelles would return them to the first party in Dubai marking them ‘Incomplete Address’ or some such thing. These parcels would again come to Bombay.

  This time, the stones were removed and pieces of silver of the same weight (nine kilos in each) placed under Iqbal’s supervision and sent back to Dubai where the Sheikh and Iqbal’s partner received them paying a fifty dirham fine.

  Before Iqbal could think any further, his eyes rested on Michael and Sadru, who were smoking bidis sitting on a Malbari’s tea stall bench across the road.

  Both were unable to decide whether they should carry out Iqbal’s instructions. After a while, both threw away their bidis and sheepishly appeared before him.

  “You fools! What would be the difference between other goons and us if we too acted like them?” Iqbal laughed at their predicament. “Remember! No one is to be stabbed, no one’s legs to be broken, no riots, no nonsense.”

  “Then…” Michael wanted to ask – why the drama?

  “To entertain the guests. As for Ali, I’ll handle him,” he promised. “You will see, he will curse the day he was born. And, for the recovery of money, just a polite threat is enough for the Sindhi.”

  Both went out and again sat at the Malabari’s tea stall. Iqbal picked up the trail of thoughts where he had left off. His problem was that he was being watched by both the customs and the DRI. The ship for Seychelles carrying nine parcels had arrived and was going to be anchored at the docks tomorrow. He had to somehow remove the watches from the parcels without being caught in the trap.

  Suddenly an idea struck him. He picked up the phone and dialed Ganpat Chalke’s number. When he came on the line, Iqbal simply said, “Go straight home after work. I’ll contact you at my convenience.”

  He put down the receiver and came to the GPO. It was time for the shops to pull down their shutters. Some offices had already closed. Ganpat Chalke was to come out exactly at five thirty. There were still five minutes to go.

  Khan was standing under an umbrella of a tree, a little distance away from the GPO. Iqbal was watching him from behind a pole on the footpath across the road.

  Ganpat emerged from the GPO building at the usual time. Khan followed him. Iqbal became his shadow.

  On reaching Bori Bunder station, Ganpat caught the five-forty fast suburban local. He had boarded the bogie from one entrance while Khan entered from the other. Iqbal boarded the next bogie. The train reached Kurla in less than half an hour.

  Ganpat got down from the bogie. Unaware of the danger stalking him, he came out of the station and soon reached home.

  Khan waited for two hours a little away from his house. Reassured that Ganpat was not going to leave his house now, Khan hailed a taxi. He did not know that Iqbal was trailing him.

  To open the parcels containing the contraband watches successfully the next day, it was essential to know where Khan would go from here. He engaged another taxi.

  “Where to?” the driver asked, flagging down the meter. Iqbal gave him a hundred-rupee note and pointed to the taxi going ahead. The taxi driver took a few seconds but understood the task. He followed Khan’s taxi and soon reached Ghatkopar. It was nine in the night.

  Khan’s taxi stopped near a building in a colony. He paid the fare, got down and slowly entered the gate. After a while, lights came on in the first floor apartment.

  From a safe distance, Iqbal saw the windows opening up. Khan opened the third window, looked at the dark sky without any apparent reason and walked away somewhere inside the apartment.

  The next day morning, Iqbal made a telephone call to Ganpat’s office. “Listen, buddy!” he said curtly, “the ship has arrived. Today also, you go straight home but don’t go to sleep. Besides, this time your colleagues are not required, did you understand?”

  Ganpat just said ‘yes’ on the phone and replaced the receiver, thinking. After all, what was Iqbal’s game plan?

  The DRI chief was suspicious – that meant someone must have leaked information! If this were true then the DRI must have put more than one hound after the quarry.

  Khan was following him. Where were the other shadows hiding? Was it necessary to stick one’s neck out? (This was a crucial question.) The temptation of earning a few thousand rupees may even cost him his job and perhaps land him in prison, his reputation ruined.

  He took the decision in no time. Taking a risk was like jumping into a blind well. He would have to ignore Iqbal. It was for his own good. However, the decision was that of a fly nestling in a spider web.

  The transit parcels arrived in Ganpat Chalke’s section in the afternoon. The parcels for Seychelles were dumped near him. Both his colleagues, the members of the clique, looked at him discreetly. He ignored them. Once again suspicion surfaced. Are they moles? (Iqbal had asked him to drop them from the operation.)

  As usual, Ganpat went out after lunch to the restaurant across the road, had his tea and then returned to his department. He had lost interest in the work. Tension was finding expression as sweat on his forehead. Whoever crossed his path appeared to him to be the DRI’s spy.

  Suddenly the telephone on the table started ringing. He was shaken to the core. As if he was lifting a snake and not a receiver, he picked it up nervously. He heard the voice he dreaded the most.

  “Ganpat!”

  “Yes.”

  “Meet me in the urinal on the second floor of your building in five minutes.”

  Ganpat started panting. He did not get a chance to speak. The line was cut off before he could utter a word. The real dilemma was now. To go or not to go? A whirlwind of thoughts started blowing in his mind. He was unable to even sit quietly. Every minute he was fidgeting in his chair, feeling like a coward.

  In the same confused state of mind, he got up like a zombie, went down to the second floor and pumping his will power, resolved to say ‘no’ to Iqbal. Yeah, a flat ‘no
’…

  When he entered the toilet, Iqbal was not there. (Or so he thought.) His entire body felt light as if a mountain had lifted off his shoulders. To release the last drops of the lingering tension, he unzipped his fly, keeping some distance from a urinating postman.

  As soon as the postman left, buttoning his pants, the latrine door slowly opened. Ganpat turned his head, still pissing, and saw that Iqbal was standing behind him. He found himself in an embarrassing position.

  Before he could zip his fly and look at him face to face, Iqbal said, “It’s 4 o’ clock. I’ll return exactly at 5:40 in the evening. You don’t have to do anything. Just remember to leave after all the staff members have left.”

  He turned towards Iqbal, “Please tell me again.”