As we all know from newspapers, an auction was held in Bombay's southernmost corner to dispose of mafia don Dawood Ibrahim's properties. Very few of us have seen Dawood Ibrahim in flesh. But we all know of him and what he is capable of. Which was why not a single buyer turned up for the auction. That's not to say there was no one around that day, no -- there were quite a few overweight police officers present to protect any interested party. I would say this was a big moment for Bombay. Here was a reel scene in real life. Here was the buy of the decade. Yet not a single builder of this sprawling city of 14 million had courage enough to bid. People in their senses felt the police would not be able to protect them. That's the kind of power Dawood Ibrahim, currently residing in Karachi, wields. Even from far. I requested a veteran producer to talk to me about the film industry's links with the underworld. Instead of meeting me at a decent restaurant or his office or home, he met me in the balcony of an under-construction apartment. He wanted to make sure nobody saw our exchange. He also wanted an assurance that I would not tape our conversation. Then, jumpy as a cat, he spoke to me for the next 90 minutes. A Shiv Sena leader rang him up on his mobile to ask about something. That made him even more nervous. He looked down from the balcony to check if anyone was watching. Before parting I asked in irritation: "Why are you so afraid of the mafia?" He folded his hands. "Madam," he said, "I am afraid of the police. They can put me behind bars if I give interviews to the press." He, this powerful man who makes big-budget movies, feels he has no right to information. At this moment, on this issue, freedom of speech is a meaningless term to him. On January 10, I was sitting on the first floor of a magnificent building designed by John Adams. The building is over a hundred years old. It's pretty clean and houses the office of Police Commissioner Mahesh Narayan Singh. I wanted to speak to him about Bharat Shah's arrest. In a very disciplined manner people were called into his cabin. Singh's attendant was so servile that he reminded me of the bonded labourers in 19th century Africa who built rails for the British. I was the last to meet Singh. I introduced myself and he remembered my interview with Chhota Shakeel, soon after he made an attempt to kill Chhota Rajan in Thailand. What the chief of police and the protector of Bombayites (including me) had to ask me was this: "Are you not scared?" I met a young director. He is, in today's language, 'hot'. Very talented, very ambitious. He is eager to make it big, no, very big, in the film world. He is waiting for two minutes of Bharat Shah's time. He says, "People love the glamour of heroes and heroines. All of us have glamour power. "But the power that fear unleashes in one's mind is much greater than the power that the busts of heroines and the glamour of heroes produce. "I mean to say that for the creators of the Amitabhs, Shah Rukhs and Aishwarya Rais, it is the image of Dawood that carries more power. "Do you know that even if Bharat Shah's alleged underworld links are proved in court, the ground realities will not change? There will still be a queue outside his office to get finance for some useless melodramatic tearjerker. "Arre, I am bloody slow," he concluded. "If I had my nexus, my rise would have been very dramatic." A journalist wrote a piece criticising Bharat Shah's (Click here for the interview with his brother Bipin Shah) alleged financing of a film produced by the mafia. People from faraway places called and congratulated him. His phone rang non-stop the day his article appeared. One reader told the journalist, "What my friends liked is the way the police went ahead to arrest him. People conceived of Shah as a part of the Establishment. So they enjoyed seeing him in custody. He is so rich and powerful, yet he was not spared. In real life the police played Amitabh!" There are people like this reader. Then there are people like the chief of police. Sheela Bhatt has been covering the Bombay underworld for the last 22 years. Illustration: Dominic Xavier Tell us what you think of this diary
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