Mafia Queens of Mumbai

by S. Hussain Zaidi

  Specific Muslim locations like Bhendi Bazaar, Dongri, Nagpada, Dharavi and Mumbra had become epicentres for all the wrong things that occurred in the city. Labelled as ‘sensitive zones’, these areas saw tremendous bloodshed and destruction.

  The army, unable to control the riots, was forced to declare curfew.

  Amidst all this, an old, fragile-looking, seventy-two-year-old had alone taken the lead in bringing peace back to Dongri. All her power centres in the underworld were fading fast. Top mafia bosses Karim Lala and Mastan were old and ailing and living a retired existence, while Vardha had long since died after retreating to Chennai in 1988. Reigning ganglord Dawood had also relocated to Dubai. And so, as far as wielding power was concerned, she was left with nothing.

  The incidents over the past few days had pained her. Several people had approached her for help. They had cried about the loss of property, the burning down of their houses and the brutal killing of their sons and families. They begged for help and she was trying her best, too. She had called the police, ganglords, politicians, but they all confessed that the situation had gone way beyond the control of ordinary men.

  It had been a month since the riots had first started and she could see how law enforcement bodies had failed to quell the growing turmoil in the city. Now, all that she could do to console these anxious souls was to ask them to look for answers in prayer. The only window and door in her room had been locked for days and heavy curtains shielded from her all that was happening outside.

  Earlier, a reprimand from her window would have silenced any sort of violent activity below. Today, however, no one cared. She had seen thousands gather to protest the demolition of the Babri Masjid and had also noticed how the mob turned violent and set police vehicles on fire. She requested them to stop but no one heeded her.

  Her power had been mutilated with the Hindu-Muslim riots. She had been asked to stay put. But, for how long... she wondered.

  The Suleman Usman Bakery firing on 9 January 1993, however, was the last straw for her. The Special Operation Squad (SOS), suspecting terrorists were holed up on the terrace of Suleman Usman Bakery, had—under the direction of joint commissioner of police R.D. Tyagi— opened fire inside the bakery. She had peered through her windows and heard the gunshots and helpless cries of people from inside the bakery; she was spectator to one of the most gruesome and unwarranted killings by the police.

  The firing had resulted in the death of nine Muslims. But the police failed to apprehend terrorists or seize firearms from the spot; the truth being that there were neither.

  Now, even a hundred warnings by the forces would not shake her determination to step out of her home. In her long white chikan nightgown and a shawl that covered the grey in her hair, this fair and heavily jewelled lady, with a rosary in one hand and a white flag in the other, went out onto the street. In a few seconds, a group of young men had gathered behind her as she led the demonstration.

  She walked between the torched lanes of Dongri towards the Pydhonie junction, unconcerned about danger.

  The junction with the Hamidiya Masjid on the right, Khatri Masjid on the left and three Jain Derasars, had become the dividing line for the two wounded communities. The Pydhonie police station, a gift of the British era, stood at right angles from these religious houses. When she reached the junction, she stopped.

  Here she stood, flanked by hundreds of young men and women, waving her flag and screaming for peace and harmony even as injured bodies lay strewn and mobs openly ransacked shops in the vicinity, setting them on fire.

  On seeing the demonstrating crowd, the police with their lathis and shields began closing in towards them. Her tired old legs had given in, but Jenabai stood calm, unafraid of the mob fury and the police lathis. From behind her supporters screamed loudly, ‘Jenabai zindabad! Jenabai zindabad! Jenabai zindabad!’

  Chapter 12

  JENABAI’S DAUGHTER

  SPEAKS

  A

  fter days of endless calls and many dead ends, we finally manage to get our hands on the phone number of Jenabai’s eldest daughter, Khatum, who is also known as Khadija.

  The seventy-four-year-old is extremely cordial on the phone and makes no attempt to hide her happiness when she hears that we are writing about her mother. Even before we know it, we have been invited to her maternal home at the Chunawala building in Dongri.

  It is the same house where Jenabai breathed her last, some fourteen years ago. Her daughter now lives here alone after having separated from her husband, who left her for another woman.

  The building is considerably old and has only three floors. The entrance leads to a narrow and steep flight of wooden stairs, up which we walk to the first floor. Khadija’s room is the second to the right and the door, painted a pale white, is protected by iron grills. After we ring the bell twice, a tall woman opens the door. She is wearing a long, pale pink salwar-kameez, and her head is covered with a dupatta.

  With a smile, she allows us in. ‘Too many robbers,’ she says, as she fumbles with the iron grill to close it again. She introduces herself as Khadija and offers us a seat on her small sofa. The marble-tiled room is not big, and even without concrete walls, the 150-square-foot room evidently serves as drawing room, bedroom, kitchen and balcony.

  The sofa that we sit on faces a bed, above which a large picture of the Holy Kaaba in Mecca crafted on cloth hangs on the wall. Khadija sits on the bed facing us.

  She is broad-shouldered and over 5’ 11 in height. Her large, gaunt nose is very much like her mother’s.

  She sheds a litde more light on Jenabai for us. ‘Powerful, fearless and abusive—these are three words that best describe my mother. She was a typical godmother, and for a long time this home of hers was the ground to settle thousands of family disputes, and endless battles within the mafia.’

  Khadija doesn’t really know when her mother gained this godmother-like stature. But, ‘She would sit on this same bed and give solutions to those who lined up outside our house with their problems. Our home was always busding with people,’ she confirms.

  Khadija also speaks of how her mother had tried to get her into becoming an informer. She accepts that she lacked the charisma and shrewdness of her mother, when it came to dealing with the police. ‘I remember her taking me along during one of her rounds of the police station, but I was extremely scared of the uniform-wallahs and told her to keep me away from all this.’

  All of a sudden, Khadija gets up from her bed as if remembering something. She moves towards the steel cupboard, opens it and carefully takes out a rosary. ‘This is her tasbeeh,’ she says, adding, ‘it was inseparable from her. She took it everywhere she went.’ The death of her son Kamaal and her own ailing health made Jenabai turn to religion. In the late 1980s, she had involved herself in the Tabligh-i-Jamaat, a religious movement among Muslims,

  Her death took the family by surprise. Jenabai, in the seventy-four years of her life, had never fallen seriously ill. It was fortunate that she hadn’t, because she made her aversion to doctors, medicines and hospitals very obvious.

  One day, she had fallen unconscious while praying. ‘We rushed her to the hospital,’ Khadija says. The doctors diagnosed brain haemorrhage and admitted her in the ICU. ‘However, when she gained consciousness and found herself in a hospital, she started screaming and abusing us for bringing her there. She demanded to be taken back home. Since we were all scared of her, we relented.’

  Back home, she slipped into a coma. Medical facilities were provided to her at home itself; however, a week later, she died.

  Thus, Zainab Darwesh Gandhi alias Jenabai Daaruwali, died a silent and painless death. All that is left of her now is the carvings on the headstone of her grave: Form no 2544, Otta no 601.

  Chapter 1

  THE BIRTH OF A SEX WORKER

  S

  he was forced to wear a red, bridal dress and sit on a bed sprinkled liberally with rose petals. Her lips were coloured a blood-red and a huge nose ring a
dorned her nose, adding to the garishness of her appearance. An old song played again and again on an old gramophone in the room. The setting reminded her of a wedding night; Madhu was still clueless about why she was here.

  Suddenly, the door pushed open. A terrified Madhu nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw Jaggan seth enter the room. His eyes were bloodshot—an indication that he had already been drinking heavily—as he looked at the young girl on the bed. In his mind he had visualised the perfect female form, and it matched hers to a tee. He was pleased that he would be the first to have all of her.

  Under his gaze, Madhu, though fully clad, felt naked. The sixteen-year-old had no idea that this was her ‘nath utaarna’ ceremony, a euphemism for what is actually the deflowering of a virgin. The ceremony derives its name from the traditional wedding night, where the husband takes off the golden nose ring (nath) of his virgin bride while making love to her. Among sex workers, however, the nath utaarna is the adolescent’s initiation into the sex trade.

  Jaggan seth began to take off his clothes and a chill ran down Madhu’s spine. She wanted to cry but Madam Rashmi had warned her against crying or showing any sort of reluctance. ‘If you cry, that man will thrash you to death. Do as he tells you,’ she had said. It was to Madam Rashmi that she had been brought by the men who had kidnapped her from the lodge. Just three weeks ago she had eloped with a man, Shravan, to Mumbai, from her village. They had stayed in a lodge for a few days. One day, some people had come and kidnapped her. Madhu was yet to learn that it was Shravan who had played middleman in selling her off to a brothel for a thousand rupees.

  Before she knew what was happening, Jaggan seth had undressed and was sitting down on the bed next to her. A horrible smell—a strange combination of paan, bidis and country liquor—hit her. Madhu turned her head away, unable to breathe properly. There was an odd moment of silence, after which the seth caught her by the arm and whispered in her ear, ‘Look at me ...’

  Madhu did not respond. Annoyed, the seth took hold of her chin and turned her face towards him. She was forced to look at his naked body. The man was the size of a blimp and had a massive, protruding belly—she was amazed that he felt no shame. Embarrassed, she put her head down.

  Jaggan seth pushed her down onto the bed and climbed on top of her. He lifted her ghagra and slid his fingers between her legs, moving them slowly and repeatedly as il to elicit some response. Madhu was shocked; she closed her eyes to say a small prayer, hoping he would stop, not realising that her agony had only just begun. In less than a few minutes, Jaggan seth had stripped her of her red ghagra choli. Madhu tried to resist, but the sixteen-year-old was no match for the obese seth.

  Tears rolled down Madhu’s cheeks; the more she tried to push him off, the more like an animal he behaved. By the time the seth was done with her—raping her several times, and thrashing her when she tried to hurt him by squeezing his penis too hard—Madhu, shivering, heavily bruised, humiliated, was in so much pain that for the first time since she had run away from home, she began to think of death.

  When Rashmi and her husband found out that she had tried to hurt Jaggan seth, they beat up Madhu. They also told her it was Shravan who had sold her to them. And though this came as a shock to her, Madhu did not shed a single tear.

  She refused to eat or drink and did not acknowledge the presence of people around her. She had become a stone— as good as dead. Initially, Madam Rashmi forced another man on her but he stormed out angrily in few minutes and demanded his money back, accusing Madam Rashmi of keeping frigid women in her brothel. Fearing a drop in het clients, she decided against sending anyone to Madhu for some time until the girl fully recovered.

  However, after a week of sheltering the girl, Rashmi decided that she had had enough. There were only two solutions that she could think of: one was to once again attempt to convince Madhu to accept her lot, and the second was to throw her out. The latter seemed easier but could get her into trouble with the cops. Then she thought of someone, the only person really, who could possibly help her with her dilemma—Gangubai.

  Gangubai was a renowned brothel madam in the area. Apart from owning several brothels, she also had immense influence on the women who worked in them. After hearing of Madhu’s obduracy, Gangubai decided to come and speak to her. This was a routine job for her and Madhu’s behaviour came as no surprise to her.

  A five-foot-tall Gangubai, dressed in a white saree, got out of her car and climbed the steps leading to Madhu’s room. Other sex workers, who were either peering out of their balconies or were on the road looking for customers, bowed in respect when they saw her enter the building.

  Gangubai entered Madhu’s room and latched the door; she had ordered everyone to give her some privacy. A chair had specially been placed in the hundred-square-foot room for Gangubai. In a corner of the room was a small cot, where Madhu was sitting cross-legged. Gangubai ignored the chair and went and sat beside her.

  ‘What is your name? she asked.

  There was no response. Madhu had buried her face in her hands and wouldn’t look up. Gangubai took hold of her face and forced Madhu to look at her. The girl’s eyes were red and puffy from the endless crying. Aware that Madhu needed to be handled carefully, Gangubai took some water from a jug that was on a nearby table and soaked the pallu of her saree in it. Then she delicately wiped Madhu’s face with it. Gangubai continued this for a minute or two, until the girl finally broke into tears and hugged Gangubai tightly.

  ‘Please let me go ... please, I beg of you ... otherwise I will die,’ she howled.

  ‘I don’t speak to people who cry. Look at your state. First stop crying and then I will listen to you. I am here to help you,’ Gangubai said.

  Madhu forced herself to stop crying.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Madhu ...’

  ‘Madhu beti, why are you behaving like this? You haven’t eaten food for so many days. Do you want to kill yourself?’ Gangubai asked in a maternal tone.

  ‘I’d rather die than live here.’

  ‘Beti, if you did not want to come here, then how did you land up here in the first place?’ Gangubai had not been told about the circumstances under which Madhu had been brought to the brothel.

  ‘Shh ... Shravan,’ Madhu hesitantly said his name and again broke into tears, the depth of his betrayal overcoming her.

  ‘We ran away from our village in Ratnagiri, He promised to marry me as my parents were against our relationship. But... but they told me that he sold me off to this place. Please ... I want to go back home ...’

  Gangubai was silent; the girl’s words had brought back a flood of memories, which took her back to when she was sixteen.

  Ganga Harjeevandas Kathiawadi was brought up in the village of Kathiawad in Gujarat. Her family comprised reputed lawyers and educationists, and shared strong ties with the royal Kathiawadi family. Ganga’s father and brothers were strict disciplinarians and took a keen interest in her education, unusual for rural families in the 1940s. However, young Ganga’s heart lay elsewhere: she was captivated by films and acting. Friends in school who had visited the city of Mumbai spoke to her about its buildings, the cars, the men and the movies, and soon she became obsessed with the desire to visit the place.

  This desire only heightened when her father employed twenty-eight-year-old Ramnik Laal as the new accountant. Apart from being besotted by him, Ganga also learned that Ramnik had spent a few years in Mumbai. She found herself drawn to him and began looking for excuses to chat with him. She would visit him on the pretext of offering him tea and lunch in the small room in the corner of her bungalow, and Ramnik did not seem to mind sparing a few minutes of his time for her.

  Initially, their discussions were limited to Mumbai and her dreams of becoming an actress, but it soon catapulted into love. Now, Ramnik began meeting Ganga outside school and in the village fields. He promised to get her a role in a film in Mumbai through his contacts in the industry, and then asked if she wanted t
o marry him. Ganga was ecstatic. She knew that she was treading uncertain ground but for the first time, she was willing to take a risk because she was madly in love with him. However, she knew her parents wouldn’t allow her to get married to Ramnik or approve of her choice of career, both of which she wanted desperately. This was when Ramnik asked her to go with him to Mumbai. Ganga immediately accepted the suggestion but her conservative upbringing prevented her from doing so without them getting married first. Hence, the day before they left for Mumbai, Ganga and Ramnik secretly got married at a small temple in Kathiawad. Then she packed a few dresses, cash and her mother’s jewellery, on Ramnik’s insistence, inside a small cloth bag and they took a train to Mumbai via Ahmedabad.

  She did not leave any letter and hadn’t even told friends about her affair with Ramnik. Once she left, she knew that she could never return to Kathiawad, in order to protect her father’s reputation.

  Two days later, Ganga and Ramnik got down onto the platform of Bombay Central station. The station was huge and immediately captured Ganga’s imagination. She had heard of this place from her friends in school and she was upset that she would no longer be able to share her own tales with them. ‘Don’t worry, you will make many new friends here. And when your friends from Kathiawad hear about you becoming a big star in Mumbai, they will come here to meet you,’ Ramnik assured a teary Ganga.

  The couple stayed in a lodge where they made love for the very first time. The next few days were spent roaming around the city. They travelled on trams, local trains, carts and saw the entire city—all with the money Ganga had stolen from her parents’ locker. For Ganga, this was all magical and dream-like; she felt no remorse at having left home.

  A week later, Ramnik suggested that she stay with his aunt until they found a permanent room. ‘The lodge is becoming expensive ... I am going to search for a small room on rent, until then you can stay with my maasi,’ he said.