The Krishna Key (26 page)

‘There’s an international auction house that wants to see it. They say that they could get upwards of a million rupees if they could get to authenticate its age,’ said Rahim cautiously.

‘Tell them not to waste their time,’ said Khan between mouthfuls. ‘It’s a family heirloom and I’m not going to sell it.’

Rahim did not push the point further. Changing the topic he asked, ‘Are we all set for our trip to Dubai?’

‘Yes, tickets and visas are done. I’m still not clear why you want to make this trip,’ replied Khan.

‘Dubai has recently imported over two hundred tons of gold,’ replied Rahim.

‘What does that have to do with us?’ asked Khan.

‘Every Indian family is estimated to hold over five grams of gold. Even the poorest Indian may scrounge in every other aspect of his life but will, without fail, put aside some gold as savings. Add this to the gold ornaments of the Indian rich and the total Indian stock should be well over ten thousand tons! The German Federal bank only has about four thousand tons in its vaults,’ replied Rahim.

‘How does that concern us?’ asked Khan. ‘We’re counterfeiters, not jewellers!’

‘My estimate is that over two hundred million dollars’ worth of gold will be smuggled into India each year, most of it from Dubai. It’s time we got a piece of the action,’ said Rahim.

‘Who are we meeting in Dubai?’ asked Khan.

‘There’s this chap who has perfected the art of melting gold into matchbox-size ingots and sewing them into canvas jackets—apparently, each jacket accommodates a hundred bars. They’re perfect for wearing on fishing boats!’ said Rahim, laughing. ‘Here, try this one on.’

Khan got up and tried on the jacket that had been filled with matchboxes instead of gold. ‘You have now worn the coronation robes, so I now dub thee Sir Khan!’ joked Rahim, as he grandly tapped a fork on Khan’s shoulders.

The joke was eventually shared with all the team members and from that day on, the name stuck—Sir Khan.

Seeing the bravery and chivalry of Karana, Shalya stopped praising Arjuna and began extolling Karana’s virtues. This brought tears of joy to Karana’s eyes. As Arjuna’s chariot approached that of Karana, Dusshasana stepped forward to protect the Kauravas’ star warrior. Bhima engaged him in a duel as he angrily remembered how Dusshasana’s vile hands had pulled Draupadi by her hair. Bhima was able to smash Dusshasana’s chariot and break his bow. As soon as he fell to the ground, Bhima pinned him down and ripped open his chest with his bare hands. As Dusshasana’s blood spurted from his heart, Bhima put his lips to the fountain, thus obeying the terrible oath that he had taken to avenge Draupadi’s insult. He then cupped Dusshasana’s blood in his hands and took it to Draupadi so that she could bathe her hair in it, and fulfil her own promise.

Some months later, their new office had been freshly painted in pale gold distemper. It was reflective of the new aside hatred and learn to , b scripturesly-acquired status of the two men who controlled an empire from it. Dada Rahim and Sir Khan sat back in their leather-backed swivel chairs and toasted one another. The decision to start smuggling gold from Dubai into Mumbai had made them rich beyond their wildest dreams. They now had well over a hundred handpicked men working for them. Between Dada Rahim and Sir Khan, they controlled counterfeiting, betting, and smuggling operations in Mumbai.

On Khan’s birthday, Dada Rahim bought a gold chain with a pendant bearing the name ‘Sir Khan’ in gothic letters. Khan had laughed, thanked Dada Rahim for the touching gesture and had immediately worn it around his neck. It was a simple pendant in eighteen-karat gold.

Khan looked at the black and white photograph of his father on his desk. He knew that it was not what his father would have wanted for his son. He would have disowned him if he had been alive to witness the dramatic rise of the infamous Sir Khan. ‘What option did I have, Father?’ Khan would softly whisper to his father’s spirit when he was alone and contemplative. He took out the key from his pocket
and unlocked his desk drawer to locate the ceramic base plate. Running his hands over the plate his father had given him brought him comfort. It was the equivalent of the effect that a pacifying stuffed toy had on a crying child—instant tactile succor.

The drawer was empty. He opened the second drawer, thinking that he may have mistakenly placed it there, but that, too, was empty. He turned to Dada Rahim and asked, ‘Does anyone else have access to our private office? I can’t find my father’s ceramic plate.’

‘You are going to thank me, my friend,’ said Dada Rahim, lighting up a Marlboro.

‘Thank you for what?’ asked Khan suspiciously.

‘You’ve been hanging on to that thing for ever so many years,’ said Dada Rahim. ‘I decided that you needed to move on. I took a photo of it and sent it to Sotheby’s. They did a quick valuation and decided that it was worth over five million rupees in auction. They set a reserve price of four million and auctioned it. It went for six! The money has been deposited in your bank account, not that a trifling sum like that is of any real consequence to you.’

Khan leapt out of his chair, landed in front of Dada Rahim and began raining blows on him. ‘You sold off the last remaining relic of my father! May you burn in hell, you filthy scoundrel!’ he shouted as he caught hold of Dada Rahim’s throat and began to throttle him. Dada Rahim struggled for breath but was eventually able to free his neck from Khan’s grasp. He managed to land an uppercut on Khan’s chin that felled him to the floor. Khan recovered smartly and
attacked yet again, head-butting Dada Rahim with a fury he’d never experienced before.

Both men were evenly matched and the scuffle carried on for several minutes before they both lay sweating and bloody on the office floor. It was at that moment that they realised they had not just lost a ceramic plate but also a valuable friendship. It was also the end of a lucrative partnership that would be written and spoken about for many years after their divorce.

Finally, the two greatest warriors on the battlefield
—
Arjuna and Karana—faced each other. They progressively used more potent weapons—divine astra,’ replied Sir Khan that ’ between is of Agni, Varuna, and Indra. Karana used his guru Parashurama’s Bhargavastra, which inflicted heavy casualties on the Pandavas. In return, Arjuna used his Brahmastra on the Kauravas. Karana fired his Magastra, the deadliest weapon in his arsenal, at Arjuna, but I pressed our chariot into the ground and this saved Arjuna. Now fate began to work against Karana. Karana’s chariot wheels got stuck in the ground. He got down to try and free the wheels and pleaded with Arjuna that, by the rules of war, he ought to be given time to do so. I started laughing, mostly to prevent Arjuna from becoming chivalrous. I said
to Karana, ‘You talk of righteousness? You sided with Duryodhana in his evil schemes. You never protested the humiliation of Draupadi. You remained a mute spectator to the killing of Abhimanyu. What righteousness do you talk of?’ I urged Arjuna to kill Karana quickly, while we had the advantage. Arjuna sent an arrow which sliced Karana’s head off his body and soon the great warrior was no more.

‘I need you to find out who bought that ceramic plate from Sotheby’s in auction,’ said Sir Khan to ACP Sunil Garg. Just below the rank of Joint Commissioner of Police, Garg had just the right level of ambition to allow himself to be led around on a leash by Sir Khan.

Ever since his much-publicised split with Dada Rahim, Sir Khan had gone on to open a slew of businesses. It had started with acquiring properties that were the subjects of litigation. Sir Khan would buy out the interest held by one or more of the parties to the dispute. Knowing that Sir Khan was involved, the other litigants would immediately offer to settle out of court, fearful of the consequences of picking a fight with him. Upon acquiring several properties, Sir Khan had decided to float a real estate development company of his own. One of his deputies had innocently asked him, ‘Boss, we know nothing about construction. Why are we getting into this line of work?’ Sir Khan had laughed and said, ‘In the real estate business, it doesn’t matter
what
you know. It only matters
whom
you know.’

And indeed the business had flourished. Every corporator, municipal official, and relevant secretary
in the state government was soon eating out of his hands. They were happy to pass Sir Khan’s files, no matter the number of fire, safety, environmental or zoning violations, because they knew that Sir Khan was not someone to be messed with.

After leaping into real estate, Sir Khan leapt into the bed of the hottest Bollywood leading lady—Kaavya. Kaavya had sizzled on screen in the role of a sleazy bar dancer in her debut movie, and Sir Khan was smitten. He had sent her a hundred long-stemmed roses each morning until she agreed to have lunch with him. ‘Lunch? Next time, it shall be dinner,’ he thought to himself as his valet helped him slip his feet into his soft-leather Stefano Bemere moccasins. By the time lunch ended, Sir Khan had decided to finance Kaavya’s next film. It was a rather long lunch that extended well beyond dinner, the most delicate negotiations being conducted in Kaavya’s bed.

Having financed a couple of movies, Sir Khan realised that most producers were strapped for cash. He decided that he would make movie-financing into a regular business. He would not only finance movies but also buy up their foreign distribution rights in advance. The desperate producers had no option but to sign over lucrative territories to Sir Khan, if they wanted his money.

Sir Khan was a regular at the finest hotels around the world. In Mumbai, a suite of the Taj Heritage Wing remained reserved for his private dinner parties. In Delhi, the grandest suite of The,’ replied Sir Khanoufoss Imperial would be made available whenever he visited the capital. In London, Sir Khan would check in at The Savoy; in Dubai he used a private chopper to land at the Burj al
Arab; in New York his preferred hotel was the Pierre on Fifth Avenue and in Paris, the George V.

Wining and dining his way through umpteen tours and meals, Sir Khan soon found that he preferred to stay in hotels where he owned a substantial equity stake. This led him to create his own hotel chain, which had the added advantage of having access to some of the finest properties of his real estate arm. Sir Khan’s flourishing real estate, film and hotel businesses provided him with ample opportunity to launder the money that he received from his illicit businesses in counterfeiting, betting and smuggling. Legitimate businesses now provided an outward veneer of respectability to Sir Khan.

ACP Sunil Garg—Assistant Commissioner of Police—sat in Sir Khan’s private study and opened his file. He cleared his throat and began. ‘Sotheby’s auctions are usually open to the public and attendees have no obligation to bid. The reserve price on the ceramic plate had been set at fifty thousand pounds. The lot was knocked down at seventy-five thousand pounds, which was the ultimate price. Sotheby’s then organised the delivery of the lot in private with the buyer.’

‘Thank you for educating me in the Sotheby’s auction processes,’ said an irritated Sir Khan. ‘I simply want to know who bought it.’

‘Ah, yes. Please bear with me for a moment,’ said Garg gently. ‘If an item is up for auction, potential bidders must register beforehand in addition to supplying some valid proof of assets. Unfortunately, this data remains private with Sotheby’s. Serious
bidders—such as collectors or trusts—often do not attend the physical event and prefer to bid anonymously by phone. These are the rules of a Sotheby’s auction and they must be followed. This is precisely what happened with the ceramic plate.’