Tardeo
ShantaramTardeo is the district Lin selects for the new premises of Salman Mustaan’s operation, preferring its quiet and clean character and its nearness to Haji Ali Shrine. His choice gives the expanding criminal business a fixed address, in a neighborhood he also associates with personal feeling.
Why Tardeo
When Salman asks where to establish the operation, Lin names Tardeo and specifies somewhere near Haji Ali Shrine. Asked to explain, he emphasizes the district’s quiet and cleanliness, then adds that he has a sentimental connection to the shrine. Salman accepts the proposal and instructs Farid to begin looking for premises.
The New Premises
Farid finds a site within a week: a two-story building a short walk from Haji Ali Shrine, formerly a records office for a branch of the Bombay Municipal Corporation. The corporation had moved to newer, larger offices, leaving benches, desks, cupboards, and shelves behind. Lin supervises cleaners and laborers as they polish the fittings and rearrange them to accommodate machinery and light-tables transferred from Abdul Ghani’s basement.
A Criminal Workplace in a Quiet District
The former office becomes a factory for the operation, its ordinary municipal furnishings repurposed around specialist equipment. The move brings Lin’s work into a settled, organized routine: the equipment arrives late at night in a covered truck, which backs up to the building’s folding doors on an unusually quiet street. Distant alarm bells and fire-engine bells interrupt that stillness, setting the new premises against a city whose dangers continue beyond its doors.
