The Old Age Home of Dawood Ibrahim
Asia’s most famous prisoner was briefly in the news last week. And in an ISI safehouse somewhere in Pakistan last week, a TV channel surfing chowkidaar must have paused on Indian news channels droning on about the government’s ignorance about Dawood Ibrahim’s whereabouts. He must have looked again at the old, creepy and nameless uncle pottering about in the big house.
It’s not easy being the most wanted Indian man these days. Particularly when the most wanted Indian woman is Sunny Leone. There was a time you know when Bollywood aped you onscreen, particularly your smuggler to gang boss to global terrorist trajectory and embraced your merchant of menance, ‘bhai’ moniker. How times have changed. Your ISI hosts regard you with scarcely disguised contempt. You are like that movie star that last delivered a hit decades ago. Your biggest hit, when your henchmen killed 257 Mumbaikars in the serial blasts of 1993, came in an era of Doordarshan. No looping visuals of buildings on fire, no slo-mo visuals of terror stricken Mumbaikars and no frenetic TV anchors. Your half-American namesake helped plot a more fiendish attack with all these ingredients.
“I’m sorry Dawood bhai,” the ISI handler shrugs in front of you. “We’re gonna have to shift you to a smaller house this month, we’re cost cutting this year to pay for Lakhvi’s court fees. And Mehjabeen bhabhi is gonna have to manage with just two SUVs.” You know these are tough times when you break into a cold sweat. A vehicle misfire could be gang rivals creeping up for a Tony Montana-style nemesis. That helicopter buzzing near your compound late at night could actually be commandos coming for you; that giant bird in the sky, a drone readying to spit out a missile.
Even that accordion of fake passports is pretty useless beyond the Arabian desert. Think about it. You’re in Europe, a border control officer looks you up and down, imagines you without the beard on your Malian passport before uttering those terrifying words. “Mr Abdul Rehman, step this way please…”
Even Bollywood that crawled when it was asked to bend and held up fistfuls of cash, nose still planted on ground, has scuttled away. It has spent more money on movies about ‘getting you’ than the government of India has actually spent on trying to get you. Even the ‘bhai’ has been usurped by a popular jail dodging superstar. Yep. Same guy who came to your parties in Dubai.