Beyond Dawood and Mastan: The untold saga of India’s Lady Dons
Stories featuring Mafia Dons are always interesting to the layman and intelligentsia. I am sure there will not be any readers who have not heard or read about Dawood Ibrahim, Haji Mastan, Varadarajan Mudaliar, or Karim Lala and his associate Pathans of Mumbai. They are as familiar as the superstars of Hindi movies. There was a Malayalam film “Best Actor” in which Nedumudi Venu tells the main character, who introduces himself as a don from Mumbai, that the megapolis is not unfamiliar to him, and he had been to the Maximum City to meet Karim Lala and Haji Mastan as part of a contract!
Most Malayalam films are based on gold and electronic goods smugglers (before 1991), and they shun anything to do with narcotics. There are many Hindi films like Deewar, Zanjeer, Company, and Mumbai Meri Jaan. Nothing surprising in youngsters preferring the profession of smugglers and contract killers as they are under the notion that all dons resemble Amitabh Bachchan, Vivek Oberoi, Mohan Lal, Ajay Devgan, etc, who are portrayed as aristocratic and elegant personalities driving around in imported limousines and sports coupes and flying in their own executive aircraft.
I remember watching “Bandit Queen”, a 1994 film directed by India’s own Cecil B Demille, Shekhar Kapur. The movie, which had the tag line “Revenge was her Reply,” was based on the life of Phoolan Devi, a real-life character who rose from the obscurity of a Madhya Pradesh village to the most dreaded character in the Chambal ravines. She surrendered to the police, contested the election and defeated all her rivals, and became a parliament member. Before that, she had massacred 15 caste Hindus who had raped her. But the Gospel of Matthew says “all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” and Phoolan Devi was no exception to this rule.
“Mafia Queens of India,” authored by leading crime writer S Hussain Zaidi and his spouse Velly Thevar, is a book that has the life stories of some of the notorious ladies who shook the conscience of India through their deeds. Lady Dons specialize in narcotics smuggling, brothel houses, real estate dealings, finance companies, and educational institutions, and there are thousands of “customers” and gullible persons spread across India, always willing to end up as victims of the sweet-talking modern-day Lady Dons.
The book Mafia Queens of India has featured Nowhera Shaikh, whom this writer met in 2013 at Tirupati. She was about to launch an International Islamic University in the Temple Town, and this has upset the devotees, including Muslims in the city. Though she introduced herself as a “girl from Tirupati”, not a single person whom I spoke to knew anything about her personality. I had gone to Tirupati with S V Badri, who is familiar to the patrons of PGuru.com, and B R Haran (May his soul rest in peace). It was during this trip to Tirupati that I heard Mukundashtakam for the first time in my life. Badri Ji and Haran offered prayers at a Lord Krishna Temple, the priests of which were the duo’s friends.
Nowhera Shaikh, whom we met, took me by surprise. She was stunningly beautiful and spoke chaste Urdu and Hindi. Though she was wearing a burqa throughout the meeting, she was kind enough to remove the hijab/veil for a minute for me! She was yet to come up with the Heera Gold project and said her only focus was on the Islamic University. That was the one and only time I met her, and the rendezvous made it to the front page of the daily. The location where she was planning to build the University was a strategic point from where the traffic to the holy shrines of Lord Balaji and Goddess Padmavati. [1][2]
The press meet she addressed on that day turned out to be interesting as some journalists asked her to remove the veil, which she politely refused. It was after the presser that she gave me a one-to-one meet during which I expressed my desire to see her face, and she obliged immediately. I did not see anything surprising in the charges that she took 1.72 lakh investors for a ride via Heera Gold. The lady is a sweet talker and makes one believe that the sun rises in the west. There were many male Nowhera Shaikhs in Kerala way back in the 1980s who swindled crores from investors. Such financial companies were known as Blade Companies because they lent money to people at exorbitant interest rates, sharper than blades.
The story about Saira Begum of Kotha 58 in GB Road is not an isolated one. Such madams were quite common in Mumbai’s Kamathipura and Grand Road areas. All of them are victims of cheating by their loved ones, who encourage them to elope with them to a world of luxury, happiness, and opulence. The teenagers are promised roles of heroines in Bollywood movies, an offer they cannot refuse.
A word about Hussain Zaidi will not be out of place. He has an envious talent for research work and gathering background materials about the topic he intends to write. Starting as a crime reporter, Zaidi made use of the experience he gained to strengthen his repertoire. The seriousness and awe with which he holds his basic profession are reflected in his writings. And he is endowed with blessings from his mentors. He has not forgotten to mention Shabeeb Rizvi, who encouraged him to read all kinds of crime works and English newspapers to expand the frontiers of his knowledge. Bravo, Zaidi, and thank you, Velly Thevar, for being the main factor behind his success. The couple offers a view on the lives of unfortunate characters who ended up in the world of crime by circumstances.
MAFIA QUEENS OF INDIAS HUSSAIN ZAIDI & VELLY THEVAR
Simon & Schuster
Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.
Reference:
[1] Powder keg: Alarm over Islamic college in Tirupati – Oct 18, 2013, The Pioneer
[2] Tirupati rises as one against Islamic varsity – Oct 21, 2013, The Pioneer
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