Sunday Snippets
By Venkatesh Raghavan*
Those were the days when there were no mobiles and pagers were new to the market, with restricted number of journalists on field having access. I coined a novel way of touching base with Mumbai’s notorious underworld.
It was just before the monsoons when I made contact with the local traders on the stretch leading from Nizam cross street in Bhendi Bazaar. With assistance from a local social worker popularly called Sagar Baba, I got to know how the shopkeepers in the locality were facing harassment from drug users who used to steal their goods and sell them to purchase their quota of drugs. With a fair amount of difficulty, I also managed to capture a photo of drug users huddled together, smoking a chillum.
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After the story got published, I took pains to carry several copies of my newspaper, The Free Press Journal, and distribute it in the locality. As people learnt that I have genuine concern for their locality, my number of contacts steadily grew and I came to know some of the big names that included Hussein Ustara, his brother Ismail Sheikh, Hanif Bearing and also the don out on bail Ejaz Pathan.
As the months passed, I developed contact with Ismail Sheikh staying in Jamli Mohalla, post the death of his brother Hussein Ustara. After repeated visits, Ismail introduced me to Kallu baba from Ratlam. The baba administered me with water and a dose of honey which I was advised to use a drop per day. As our familiarity grew, I told Ismail and other local contacts in Bhendi Bazaar area that included Zeehan Bhai that anymore wanting to contact me for disclosing crime stories can come and visit me at the Irani restaurant opposite Matunga circle. The manager Ali Akbar was my friend. You can just leave a message with Ali Akbar and he will arrange for us to get in touch.
That was a very comfortable arrangement whereby I met my informers at the Irani restaurant and extracted crime stories, many of which were used in my novels. It was an innocuous way of information gathering, as to the lookers on, it was just a reporter clad in shorts visiting the Irani for a cup of tea.
With passage of time, more and more people as distant from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar got in touch, narrating their tales. The arrangement died its natural death as the mobile era ushered in easier means of touching base.
*Venkatesh Raghavan is also the author of best seller crime thriller, Operation Drug Mafia, marketed by Times Book, a division of Bennet & Coleman Ltd.
