The Great Bombay Dope Trick

Bhai and client bonded over heroin. Then the stakes changed to partners in crime

Arre, Bboss, maal aa gaya hai?8221; This was not some cheesy dialogue from an 80s Don 038; Moll Bollywood flick, but the feverish, expectant plea crackling down the unwieldy MTNL telephone to Bhai 8212;the once-familiar narco-dealer, for pure white unadulterated heroin and cocaine. The aimless hippy, deliriously weed happy scene was for the wimps, the Big Hunks and Big Bucks had arrived. Heroin chic hit the streets of Bombay in the mid-80s, and was the hardcore scene of the Narco Bhais and Cool Dudes. The ultimate fix of danger and decadence.

Swish Sedans cruised down the Taj waterfront, the Arabian Sea shimmering in the night blue, by the jetty and the monumental Gateway of India, to the seedy hotels further up. Doors were flung open and the Dudes, all handsome and laconic, whisked upstairs to meet Bhai, the Dealer. If you were a Big Client, you were given the privileges, sitting with the Boss as the packets of white snow was passed around for grade and affirmation, liberal tastings, even 8216;chasing8217; with the Boss, if he had the habit too. It was also a lesson in egalitarianism for the Dudes 8212; junkies from the alleys behind, in Colaba, from the Salvation Army to Stiffles Hotel, or the opium dens of Dongri, hung around in corridors, begging for a fix. The Bhais were everywhere 8212; running video parlours, seafood restaurants and, dealing in drugs.

Narco-dealer Sam Biryani, perhaps still in Tihar Jail today, ran the most well-stocked video parlour at the bottom of Pali Hill 8212; with Hollywood classics, retro-movies, to the latest pirated stuff, which had art-house buffs to Bollywood regulars begging for more. If you were allowed into Biryani8217;s loft upstairs, you had to hear his favourite hard-luck-to-good-luck story 8212; when as a regular Sindhi rookie, he arrived in the City of Dreams, craving glitz and glam, and was jolted to reality when a swank Merc or some such car drove past him and splashed the muddy rain water on his white regulated Sindhi safari suit. 8220;I swore I would sit in a Mercedes one day,8221; he says dramatically, still dazzled by his rags-to-riches story.

Notorious Iqbal Mirchi launched the first groovy seafood restaurant in the city, a big success still for its butter and garlic crab and tandoori pomfret. While Mirchi allegedly fled abroad, his frontman still faced the bullets, shot dead right in front of the restaurant8217;s door. No one knew it happened, shootouts were common, and waiters froze with fear and terror when clients cheerily asked for the proprietor 8212; he always ensured the freshest fish in town for you.

Those were the days of innocence for the high rollers; some were making creative choices, talentless others dooming to hell. Hyped on heroin and undying friendship, the dealer and the player, bonded forever on loyalty and brotherhood. The stakes were high, but no one gave a damn, it was the excess of the rich and bored. The Bhais were on a roll too 8212; from the lush funds of the narco trade, they moved to real estate.

Now bloated land sharks, they wanted to park their slush supplies into lucrative trade. They found the ultimate bay 8212; Bollywood Bombay. But Life changed too 8212; mega Bucks, mega stakes. It was the Neo-Nineties. Crime and mafia, politics and sophistry, terrorism and the new world order. A declaration of friendship was now a deed of doomed kismet. The merchant of ecstasy was also a trader of terror. It was time to back off. Sanjay Dutt learned too late.