Don: Varda Bhai- Part - I

Channel: Zee News

Programme: Don Telecast: Friday- 9:30 pm Repeat telecast: Saturday- 9:30 am, 3:30 pm, 10:30 pm, Sunday-11:00 am

Hunger was what drove Varad Rajan Mudliyar alias Varda Bhai to the Mumbai dockyard. He soon picked up a job and began working there. Then one day, a chance meeting with Haji Mastan made Varda realise that there was a world outside the dockyard also. Where wealth was power and the dark alleys of the underworld appeared glamorous. Both Mastan and Varda were Tamils and had common interests, which brought them together. Varda started a business of illegally producing alcohol to earn a living. It flourished so much that there came a phase when in Mumbai 90% of illegally made alcohol was being produced in Varda’s dens only. Gradually in those areas of Mumbai where Tamils used to live, Varda’s image started to turn like Robin Hood. In the colonies of Dharavi and Matunga, Varda started his durbar. Varda gave the underworld the shape of a company. He delegated different responsibilities to five of his special people. He even divided their areas on the basis of caste and religion. Meanwhile, in an electronics shop of Manish market, Dawood’s smuggling business was in full swing. He used to transport from one place to another the gold which came to the dockyard. An incident of looting a businessman in broad daylight in 1974 announced Dawood’s arrival on the crime scene. With his elder brother Shabeer he indulged in petty crimes but soon got bored. Moreover his boundary of crime was limited to Dongra, Nagpada and Bhindi Bazaar only. Now he wanted to expand his reign. He had started eyeing those areas where Varda Rajan Mudliyar was ruling the world of crime. Between the J J flyover and Dharavi comes the area of Dadar, Dagdi Chawl and Parel’s mill. Those days in these areas small time gangsters were busy making a place for themselves. Here Babu Resham Amar Naik, Ashwini Naik and Rama Naik held sway. Dawood shook hands with them. And with this he took his first step outside the J J flyover. Dawood had big plans but he did not want to clash with Varda immediately. So he concentrated on quietly learning the trade from Varda. In the meantime, Varda’s attention had got diverted to the unoccupied government land in the Elphinstone regions of Mumbai. He forcibly occupied the same. Now after Dharavi and Matunga, Elphinstone also came under Varda’s influence. Varda had still not forgotten his first meeting with Haji at the dock. In his close association with Haji, Varda had realised how much money smuggling could fetch him. Varda did not want any enmity with Haji so he chose an area, which no one had eyed till now. By now Varda and his gang had spread to maintown Mumbai. He knew very well the ways of the underworld. So he turned his attention to the police and started spending money on them like water. He became so well-entrenched with the police that they used to get to know of his arrival to the police station in advance. By now Varda’s underworld business started working in a corporate-like fashion. New people’s entry in the gang and what their target would be were all a part of a well-thought out strategy. Dawood too had started to give a “corporate” shape to his gang. He told all the small-time gangsters of central Mumbai that if something big had to be done then it was required for all of them to come under one roof. Though the smuggling and gambling business had started generating plenty of money for Varda, he now turned his attention towards flesh trade. But as Varda’s kingdom was expanding, his pot of crime was also getting full. He was unaware that one honest police officer would spell his doom.