Dawood Ibrahim---Doyen of the Dons

'' The ears of his enemies were deafened by the noise of his achievements .''---said by somebody about Dawood Ibrahim....

Ashdoc's book review---of the first 75 pages of the book FROM DONGRI TO DUBAI ( rest will come in batches as I read the book )
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There are Dons and there are Dons and there is the Doyen---of the Dons.....
This is the story of Dawood Ibrahim---the Doyen of the Dons ; the man who ruled and fooled over Mumbai but also loved and lost it.....

But before the arrival of the Doyen of the Dons there are the lesser players.....
Or rather , such is the reputation and such are the achievements of the DON that he makes those who appear before him look like a set of lesser players.....
Actually those who appear before HIM are legends in their own right---men such as Haji Mastan , Vardarajan Mudaliar , Baashu Dada and Karim Lala.....
But their achievements pale before the spectacular deeds of the big D---a name the Indian police and the intelligence agencies along with the people and the govt have come to fear as well as admire , though the admiration comes only grudgingly.....

But be as it may , the story starts with the onset of independence and the minor gangs of the fifties and their activities---mere pinpricks compared to what is happening today.....
But India was much more poor at that time and the money at stake was much less too.....So from minor knifings in the fifties we graduate to the rivalry between christian and muslim gangs in the sixties---a rivalry the christian gang lost because one of their leaders made the mistake of falling in love with a muslim girl and thereby lost the loyalty of his muslim followers.....

......And from there the story graduates to smugglers like Haji Mastan and Vardarajan Mudaliar---men who allied and marked out their respective territories to rule Mumbai jointly.....
Their alliance was cemented by the fact that both of them came from Tamil Nadu and spoke the same language---as also by the fact that they were not overly ambitious .

Haji Mastan was the coolie from the docks who went on the become a mafia kingpin and gave himself the honorific HAJI after he had done the pious journey of haj---a man who inspired the role of Amitabh Bachhan in the film DEEWAAR . And Vardarajan Mudaliar inspired the Vinod Khanna film DAYAVAN and Kamal Hassan film NAYAKAN . Thus was born an alliance between the mafia and Bollywood---and bollywood and the mafia continue to be fascinated by each other even today.....

In fact much of the book is written in pucca filmy style , and needless to say will form fodder for many films in the future---at least thats what the writer would unabashedly like it to be.....

Consider the scene of the first meeting between Haji Mastan and Vardarajan Mudaliar---Varda bhai has been caught by the police and the man who saves him is seen by Varda coming to him through a haze wearing a white safari and smoking a 555 cigarette . The scene as described by the writer has all the hallmarks of a film scene and has been written keeping a future film in mind.....

So we move on and find Karim Lala---a man so powerful that all he has to do is keep his walking stick in a place whose tenants have refused to evacuate it and lo !! they evacuate in no time.....

And then onto Baashu dada and his durbar---a place which has all the trappings of an akhada with a badam sherbet making machine in the center , for badam sherbet was the favourite of Indian body builders before protein shakes became popular....

But the man destined to triumph over all these DADAS and become the biggest daddy of them all was now making his mark---needless to say his name was Dawood.....
He was the son of a constable of the Mumbai police named Ibrahim Kaskar , a man of respectability in his locality of Pydhonie whose advice was taken by everybody including the Bhais and the police . But Dawood was the incorrigible rebel , a boy who wanted from his teens to live the life of kings and who loved and throughly enjoyed keeping others in his terror.....

......And when Baashu dada insulted his father Dawood took terrible revenge by destroying Baashu's akhada as well as his reputation.....
But a bigger challenge lay ahead---that of Karim Lala and his pathans live Alamzeb and Amirzada Pathan.....A slender konkani muslim would have to fight out the might and cruelty of the pathans....

But all that lay ahead ; for now Dawood was happy to turn the tables on a police inspector who was hoping to use him and make the inspector his lackey instead.....

All this was happening in the muslim quarter of Mumbai---Dongri . For now Dawood was content to be in Dongri . New horizons beckoned---like Dubai.....and far into the future lay Karachi.....
But the road from Dongri to Dubai to Karachi would prove to be a long and momentous one---in fact I haven't reached that part of the book yet.....but when I do , rest assured that I will take you on that journey too....

For now , I have to stop this ashdoc review here.....will continue later....

......signing off for now....
---ashdoc .

book is wrtten by s hassan zaidi .