IT'S THE STORY of a Mumbai mob boss who murders, kidnaps and extorts his way to the top of organised crime in India, but Adhure Khawab is no Bollywood movie script - at least not yet. Written behind bars in the maximum-security wing of an Indian prison, Babloo Srivastava's semi-autobiographical novel was launched amid a blaze of publicity last month. Convicted of murder, bank robbery and kidnapping, 43-year-old Srivastava is serving a 14-year jail term in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh.
Publisher Satish Verma compares Srivastava to 2003 Booker Prize winner D. B. C. Pierre (aka Peter Finlay), a self-confessed drug addict and gambler who sold a friend's home and coolly pocketed the proceeds. 'But unlike Pierre, who indulged in petty crime, robbing friends and smoking hash, Srivastava is a blue-chip mafia boss,' Verma says. 'A top-notch professional criminal, he was one of India's most wanted men until his arrest 10 years ago.'
'Pierre's Vernon God Little bagged the Booker. But I'm sure Srivastava's novel is going to rewrite publishing history in a country of one billion-plus people.'
Unbelievable as the hype may be, it isn't entirely misplaced. Srivastava is a household name in India, thanks to relentless media coverage of his crimes. Known as the King of Kidnappings, he masterminded a series of abductions and a nationwide extortion racket that earned him billions of rupees.
Publisher Nai Sadi paid Srivastava a handsome 250,000 rupee ($43,000) advance on the book, which was written in seven months. The gangster looms large on the dustcover in his trademark dark glasses, a cigarette dangling from his lips, holding a revolver and a wad of banknotes. An English translation is expected by the middle of next year and there's talk of a feature film. Negotiations with a Bollywood producer are said to be under way.
Srivastava comes from a respectable family - his father was a school principal, his elder brother a colonel in the army, and his six sisters are university graduates married to professionals. In this thinly veiled autobiography, Srivastava writes that he wanted to join the Indian Administrative Service, the elite civil service that runs the country 'But I couldn't resist the temptation of minting money. So I embraced the world of crime at the first opportunity. I'm the proverbial black sheep of my family.'
And even now that he's in jail, Srivastava boasts that he continues to run his empire from behind bars, thanks to 'inexhaustible supplies of SIM cards'. Procuring wine and women - and even designer clothes and after-shave - is easy if you have money to bribe the corrupt prison guards, he writes.
