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and Abu Salem (right) are a few of the noted members of D Company.
Photo courtesy: Retired Assistant Commissioner of Mumbai Police (ACP), Ishaq Bagwan.

4
    Madrasi Mobster
    O n a scorching afternoon, an industrious young boy from Tamil Nadu was working very hard at the famous Victoria Terminus as the sun shone down relentlessly. Around the same time that Mastan was struggling for his livelihood at the Bombay Port Trust in the dockyards of Bombay, Varadarajan Mudaliar, another coolie, was trying to make a living at the landmark railway terminus.
    Both of them were oblivious to the fact that their destinies would be closely intertwined with the other and that their lives would be entrenched in a similarly heady mix of crime, money, and power.
    One story in particular precedes the ‘Madrasi mobster’ (‘Madrasi’ is a colloquial north Indian term for a south Indian), alias kala babu . He is said to have changed an institution, and put in its place, another: this was the only time in the history of Bombay’s crime that the ubiquitous cutting chai made way for a cold, dark beverage called kaala paani , across police stations in the city. The fizzy liquid was substituted for chai because of this singular coolie. According to stories from the time, at many police stations across the central belt of Bombay, the chaiwallah (tea-vendor) who brought his daily quota of tea several times a day in chipped glasses would walk in with glasses filled with the fizzy cola instead. The chaiwallah would leave this drink only on the tables of the senior officials in the police station and walk away without charging any money for the drink. In what seemed like an unwritten law, junior officials would immediately clear the room, people who had come to register complaints would be told to empty the premises, and the senior officials would put all other work on hold. The black liquid was a message sent to the officials that kala babu , was on his way to the police station. A policeman, who did not wish to be named, says, ‘Those days, it was his way of saying: I am coming to meet you. Make necessary arrangements. He had the whole force serving him.’ Till date, there is no one who ran the mafia the way kala babu d id; and his biggest trump card was that he knew people’s weakness, especially that of the system . He was always heard saying, ‘Keep people’s bellies full and balls empty’.
    If the anecdote has any truth in it, it is certainly further evidence of a phenomenal rags-to-riches story. For this kala babu who started his life in the city at the Victoria Terminus station as a coolie went on to become one of the most powerful Hindu dons to rule over the city.
    Varadarajan Muniswami Mudaliar was born into a feudal Mudaliar family with scarce means in the small town of Vellore, in Tamil Nadu. It was 1926 and he had begun working when he was just 7 years old as an errand boy at a photography studio at Mount Road in Madras (present day Chennai). He never completed his studies, but was the only boy who could read and write in English and Tamil in his family.
    With nothing but a sheer force of aspiration , Varadarajan moved to the city of dreams and settled into one of the lanes adjoining the then Victoria Terminus. As much as his hard-working nature brought him under the radar of his employers, his name became synonymous with a person with a heart as large as the nameless crowd that he passed every day in the crowded station. The lore of his ‘large-heartedness’ was exemplified in the fact that when he finished his hard day’s work, he went to the dargah to offer niyaz (sacred food) to the devotees.
    Varda used to visit the 260-year-old shrine of Bismillah Shah Baba, which was located just behind the main concourse of the long-distance terminus at VT. Starting off with a small amount of food for the poor every day, he began organising food for them at a massive scale as he flourished.
    Even as he progressed in his life—from a simple