The man behind Dawood

Khalid Pehelwan (left) with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. PICs courtesy/Dawood's Mentor: The man who made India's biggest don, Penguin Random House India

When word got around that Khalid [Khan alias Khalid Pehelwan] was working as a goon in the movies, some mafia members mocked him while others interpreted it as his infatuation with Bollywood. Dawood [Ibrahim], who had seen the real heroics of Khalid and knew his actual stature and calibre, could not tolerate such frivolous discussions.

Dawood reckoned that Khalid was going through a rough patch after his separation from Bashu, which may be why he had agreed to act in cameo roles in Hindi films. Dawood had always thought that Khalid had wasted himself at the Social Club. Dawood wanted to work with his mentor as he understood Khalid's felicity and fearlessness, an unbeatable lethal combination in the underworld. Khalid's special skills and unconventional thinking had made [Mumbai don] Bashu [Dada alias don Ahmed Khan] richer and stronger. Had they continued to be a team, they could have surpassed all their competitors and rivals to emerge as the most powerful gang in the city. Dawood was aware that he would not be anywhere in the reckoning if Bashu Dada and Khalid had remained steadfast as a team.

Khalid in wrestler's pose

But Bashu's jealousy and lack of foresight had proved to be the gang's undoing. Dawood decided to meet Khalid to persuade him to return to smuggling. It had been over five years since Khalid had walked out of Teli Mohalla, out of Bashu Dada's life and then abandoned the business altogether. Khalid had been waiting for some opportunity to come his way that would propel him to a financially lucrative venture. However, nothing worthwhile had been proposed to him. Years had passed and he had now started feeling ennui and stagnation.

He had made incessant efforts to find peace in many ways. In fact, he even went to his home town of Harda after a long hiatus and donated a lot of money as charity to various masjids and madrasas. The idea behind philanthropy is that it cannot be a one-off gesture. Charity needs to be a continuous effort. It has to have meaning and purpose. After donating lakhs of rupees towards various charitable causes and mosques, Khalid felt good for a while. But soon he felt the same emptiness gnawing inside him - the feeling that he could generate loads of money, if only he had some backing.

His aspirations to share screen space with Amitabh Bachchan had also come to naught. Though he had a fleeting background appearance in Nalayak with Jeetendra and Dara Singh, in Kasme Vaade, Bachchan was miles away from the frame. Khalid's dreams of working with Bachchan were shattered. Business-wise Khalid, too, was not very happy as his financial resources were dwindling. He did not have the required wherewithal and the gang network set-up needed to run a smuggling syndicate independently, else he would have launched his own enterprise long ago. He missed his smuggling days. He missed the excitement, the power and the cat-and-mouse game with the law-enforcement agencies, but mostly he missed the money.

It was one of those soul-searching moments that occurred when Khalid was at the club, when Dawood dropped by and took him out for dinner. During the meal, Dawood gave Khalid a detailed low-down of his smuggling exploits.

Dawood told him about how he and Sabir had monopolized the landing spots of Raigad, Dighi and other spots on the Konkan and Srivardhan coasts. 'We rule the roost there. No outsider can ever use those landing spots,' Dawood had said with a certain sense of braggadocio.

He also told Khalid about how he had developed close business relations with the top bullion and gold traders in Kalbadevi. He name-dropped several reputed Marwari and Gujarati seths from Bombay and Surat. Khalid's heart raced at the information. He told him that they had sounded out some Pakistani smugglers in Dubai who had agreed to do business with them in Bombay. Dawood was sharing with Khalid his intricate and exclusively cultivated business blueprint, without keeping any secrets or withholding any names or contacts. Khalid felt a sudden rush of affection, delight and admiration at his protégé's financial success and rapid strides in the smuggling business. Dawood had done very well for himself and the best part was that he was quite open and candid about his business activities, and was confiding in him without any insecurities or fears that people in such businesses usually display.

When Dawood was done talking, he abruptly made an offer, without any preamble, to Khalid, saying, 'Bhai, aa jao, mujh se haath milalo. Milkar dhanda karte hain, (Brother, join hands with me, let's do business together).' Khalid knew that Dawood did not have the eloquence and was usually brutally direct to the extent of being hurtfully blunt. But this was just too much for him to absorb. Khalid was totally taken aback and pleasantly surprised to hear of the offer from Dawood. Khalid could never have expected that someone who had such a well-established business and who had smoothened all the kinks in the process with the best available resources could even think of inviting an outsider as a partner, to share the spoils.

At the time, Dawood's gang was not known as the D-Gang but was referred to as the Dawood-Sabir gang. Despite being the older sibling, Sabir received second billing in the gang and Dawood had the upper hand. Khalid had a good equation with Dawood but he was not so sure about Sabir. 'Why don't you check with Sabir if he is okay with me coming in?' Dawood's reply was a shocker, 'Agar mujhe do mein se kisi ek ki baat manni padi, toh main hamesha aap ki baat manoonga, aur bhai ko mana loonga (If I have to choose between Sabir and you, then I will always give preference to you and convince Sabir to follow suit).' Khalid was totally floored at this humility and affection shown by Dawood. There was no reason for him to hesitate. Khalid immediately gave his consent and Dawood smiled. Khalid rose from the table and gave a bear hug to a much shorter and thinner Dawood, almost lifting him off his feet. It was a genuine and sincere embrace that only a Pathan could give with all his intensity and fervour.

Excerpted from Dawood's Mentor: The man who made India's biggest don by S Hussain Zaidi, with permission from Penguin Random House India

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