Lisbon

In the sprawling, violent geography of Mafia Queens of Mumbai, Lisbon occupies a strange and singular place: it is the one city in the book where a fugitive couple from the Mumbai underworld briefly finds peace, only to have that peace shattered by a phalanx of police officers at the door. The Portuguese capital functions as the narrative's westernmost point, the end of a long flight from India that began with forged documents and ended with a five-year-long nightmare. It is here that Abu Salem and Monica Bedi, two of the most wanted figures in Mumbai's criminal history, are arrested, separated, and ultimately transformed — she into a devout Christian, he into a convicted felon — before being handed over to Indian authorities. Lisbon thus stands as the book's most potent symbol of both the global reach of the Mumbai underworld and the inescapable pull of the law that ultimately caught up with it.

The Flight to Lisbon and the Life of Fugitives

The road to Lisbon was long and circuitous. Before the couple ever set foot in Portugal, they had been on the run across the world, a journey that Monica Bedi later described as a kind of honeymoon. They visited many places and met many people along the way, people who did not look at them as criminals on the run but simply as ordinary travellers. The trip did a world of good to their relationship, and Monica recalled a six-day stay in Amsterdam with particular fondness: Salem had gone ahead, and when she followed, he met her at the airport with a beautiful bouquet of roses. Later, in a restaurant, he whispered sweet nothings into her ear, gifted her a nightgown, and they made love in their hotel room. She was surprised by his sudden affection, confessing that she did not know a man like him could love so passionately. In the days that followed, he became more possessive and respectful towards her, and it was not long before she had fallen in love with him once again. After those memorable days, they escaped to Lisbon, where days became weeks and weeks became months; life had become one endless honeymoon. Her parents even visited them and were genuinely fond of Salem. Everything seemed so wonderful that Monica had completely forgotten the fact that they had an Interpol notice slapped against them.

The couple's presence in Lisbon was itself a product of the global criminal economy that the book traces throughout. The same networks that connected Mumbai to Dubai, Hong Kong, and Aden through gold smuggling — the trade that made Haji Mastan millions — also enabled the movement of people across borders with false papers. Monica and Salem travelled on fake passports, using the names Fauzia Beg and Danish Beg respectively, names that would later appear in photographs acquired from those very documents. The couple's flight to Lisbon was thus not merely a personal escape but a journey along the arteries of a transnational underworld that the book maps from the docks of Mumbai to the hills of Birganj.

The Arrest on 20 September 2002

The idyll ended on the morning of 20 September 2002. The doorbell rang, an unusual occurrence since the couple rarely had visitors and were always informed beforehand. Salem told Monica that it would be better if she checked who their visitor was. Little did she know that she was opening the door to a five-year-long nightmare. A huge phalanx of police officers was standing at her doorstep, having surrounded their home. Salem tried to resist, but they had no option but to surrender.

The arrest itself was a scene of almost cinematic drama, described in the book with the detail of a film sequence. The police convoy cut across the runway at Lisbon airport, its blaring sirens not raising even one eyebrow amidst the din. The gun-toting guards accompanying the convoy gave the impression of it being a mobile fortress. The cars screeched to a halt and officers of the Policia Judicia stepped out, escorting a thirty-six-year-old man dressed in a black T-shirt and track pants. He had a stooping gait and seemed to be smiling nervously. For a moment, deputy superintendent of police, Special Task Force, CBI Devendra Pardesi, could not believe his eyes. He had handled tough cases and tougher criminals, but this one seemed a bit unreal. The man the Portuguese police were handing over just did not fit the bill of one of Mumbai's most dreaded gangsters — someone who had masterminded some of the most gruesome murders in the annals of Mumbai crime history.

Then the occupant of the second car stepped out. Just as in the movies, a policeman held the door open as a woman's legs emerged from the vehicle and daintily settled on the tarmac, toes first and then the heels as she climbed gracefully out of the car. Her fair skin appeared pale and almost translucent in the afternoon heat. Tall and slim, she had very delicate features that were strained at the moment as she clutched a Bible like it was a lifesaver. Her long, thin legs and narrow waistline were emphasised in the figure-hugging T-shirt and jeans that she wore. The contrast between the two arrivals — the stooping, nervously smiling gangster and the graceful, Bible-clutching woman — captured the strange duality of the couple that Lisbon would hold for the next several years.

Imprisonment and Separation

After the arrest, Monica and Salem were kept in separate cells but were allowed to meet only once a week. The first few days were extremely rough for Monica. Her jail inmates were very disturbing; unlike her, they were hardcore criminals and aggressive by nature. She hardly interacted with any of them. She was also worried for Salem, knowing that the arrest would have affected him badly; he had always been scared of being thrown into the slammer. Fortunately, unlike Indian jails, the Lisbon jail had telephones, so even though there were restrictions, they kept in touch with each other occasionally.

To keep him in good spirits, Monica began writing romantic letters to him. She used to refer to him as 'babu', while she would call herself his 'gudiya' (doll). These letters also acted as a way to channel her creativity; she wrote him poems and drew beautiful sketches of them together. The letters continued even after her family insisted she forget him. Love only acted as a healer, and she could not explain this to them. But the continued loneliness had affected her badly, and she started seeking a crutch. It was during this time that she found her calling.

Meanwhile, the Indian government was informed of the arrest and talks of extradition began. Monica's family was also notified, and her brother and father hurriedly travelled to Lisbon in the hope of securing her release. However, they soon realised that it would be years before they would see her step out from prison. In 2003, a Portuguese court, where the case had come up for hearing, sentenced Monica to two years' imprisonment for entering the country on forged documents. Salem, on the other hand, was sentenced to three years for entering Portugal on forged documents, two years for causing injury to a cop and resisting his arrest, and one year for perjury. Monica's father was visibly upset and would not speak to her, until his paternal instincts gave way and he broke down. He looked shattered. She had brought a lot of shame to the family and knew that there was nothing she could do to defend herself.

Conversion and Transformation in the Lisbon Jail

The next two years in Lisbon were emotionally and mentally draining for Monica. There was not a single day when she was able to sleep peacefully. The years of isolation were taking a toll on her, and the battle to survive was eating her from within. It was in this state of despair that the prison authorities arranged for Christian nuns to visit jail inmates thrice a week to help reform them. Monica would attend their sessions diligently. It was during this time that a nun, who had noticed her sinking into her own grief, advised her to turn to Christianity. She made Monica read certain passages in the Bible that actually had a soothing effect on her. Monica was soon drawn to the teachings of the Bible.

She chose not to tell Salem about her inclination towards Christianity. Salem, who is a practising Muslim, had asked her to take up his religion for his sake, and she did not want to hurt his sentiments in any way. Her letters to him, though, reduced considerably, and they slowly drifted apart. The Bible had given her life a new direction. The transformation was profound: the woman who had entered Lisbon as a fugitive clutching a Bible like a lifesaver had, by the time she left, found in that book a genuine source of meaning and solace.

Something else unexpected happened to Monica in Lisbon. She gave an interview to a TV programme that focused on the lives of jail inmates. She told them her story and how she had been suffering unnecessarily. Her interview was aired on a local channel and, before she realised it, she was receiving a lot of support from people. It was during the same time that her brother Bobby told her about the possibility of them being extradited to India in a few months. The nuns had told her that they were praying for her, and she felt like God was answering their prayers. Lisbon, which had been the site of her arrest and imprisonment, had also become the site of her spiritual rebirth — a place where the Bollywood starlet who had fled India as a gangster's moll found a new faith that would carry her through the years of legal battles that lay ahead in her homeland.