Chapter 300: Regaining Power
Bal Thackeray is almost seventy years old, his hair and beard are all white, and his energy is not as good as before.
He has recently become addicted to cigars and often stares into space with them between his teeth.
Maybe it's because he's getting older, he always thinks about the past, his childhood.
His father was a teacher and was very strict with him.
But like most children who adore their fathers, Thackeray always kept that respect in his heart.
He believed that his father was a great social reformer, writer and omnipotent.
Thackeray's mother wanted her son to become a civil servant, which was a good job that brought honor to the family at that time.
But his father said, "How can my son be a mere clerk? I want him to be an artist."
In their family, their father's words were his decrees. When he got angry, the children would wet their pants.
His father bought Thackeray an Indian banjo, a stringed instrument played with two hands, but Thackeray clearly had no talent for music.
He worked hard, and once he mastered one hand, the other wouldn't work. Once he mastered the other hand, this one wouldn't obey him again.
His father was furious and pressed his son's hand down hard until Thackeray's fingers were cut by the strings and bleeding.
When he started crying, his father would say, "You idiot! Get out!"
Later, when World War II broke out, Thackeray would read with interest the Bunbury cartoons on the front page of The Times of India, while his father watched him from the side.
He ordered his son to copy these cartoons every day, and he would check them one by one that night. Through copying, Thackeray gradually understood the political struggles in Bombay:
The Gujaratis and Marathis in the city were arguing with each other, each claiming that Bombay should belong to them.
Thackeray's father actively responded to the call of the Marathi Unity Movement and held secret meetings at his home in Dadar.
Thackeray was influenced by his surroundings, and within a few years he began drawing political cartoons for the Free Press.
In the 1960s, he started a weekly comics column and continued to speak out for the rights of the Marathi people.
This column later became the main base of the "Sons of the Soil", the Marathi solidarity movement.
The Marathas defeated the Gujaratis and won the Battle of Bombay.
They demarcated the boundaries of Maharashtra according to their language and made Bombay the capital of the state.
It can be said that Thackeray has been exposed to politics since he was a child, and it was through decades of influence that he built up the Shiv Sena's current success.
In today's Mumbai, few dare to disagree with him.
In order to please the Shiv Sena leader, the City Hall even changed the name of Bombay to "Mumbai".
Yes, that happened this year.
Mumbai's public sector is now busy renaming signs across the city.
"Bombay" will no longer appear in official letters, and the Marathi pronunciation "Mumbai" is the official pronunciation.
Not only that, Valentine's Day was also banned by Thackeray. He had told Ron that he would tear up the "Valentine's Day cards", and now he has done it.
On Valentine's Day at the beginning of the year, the Shiv Sena, acting on his instructions, smashed shops selling Valentine's Day cards and destroyed restaurants offering Valentine's Day packages.
Newspapers as far away as Türkiye, South Africa and Australia reported Thackeray's atrocities on their front pages.
He is a tiger, the symbol of the Shiv Sena, and Thackeray's most important public image.
He was pictured alongside tigers in newspapers, juxtaposed with them on billboards, and even attended the opening ceremony of a tiger conservation center, sparing no effort to connect himself to tigers.
This is his personality and also his own brand image.
But Tiger was old after all, and the cigar he was holding had gone out, but he was still lost in thought.
It wasn't until the servant brought Ron in that he opened his mouth as if he had just woken up.
“Long live the Marathas.”
"Hurray." Ron clasped his hands together with a smile.
"Why are you here?"
"I'll bring you some good stuff." Ron pushed the small wooden box in his hand to him.
"Cigar?" Thackeray opened it on the spot.
“Authentic Cuban stuff.”
“I heard the best cigars are in Cuba.”
"yes."
He put down the cigarette he was holding and chose another one from the box. He cut it and lit it.
"That's right. I wonder if Americans smoke this stuff." He looked comfortable.
In Thackeray's understanding, if something is popular in the United States, it should be good.
"Ordinary people probably won't be able to get it." Ron shrugged.
"Why?"
"Cuban cigars are prohibited in the United States."
Thackeray didn't understand the meaning of "prohibited goods", so Ron could only explain to him what international sanctions were.
“If goods can’t get out, people can’t make money and the streets will become chaotic.”
"Yes, Mumbai has been in turmoil recently." Ron nodded.
"All the business in Bombay has been taken away by foreigners," said Thackeray, getting angry. "One day I opened the Yellow Pages and found that very few of the wealthy people who came to my house were Marathas.
The biggest bosses in South India are mostly called Patels (Kshatriyas), followed by Shahs (herders). They don't run factories, but only do opportunistic work, such as selling alcohol and running dance halls.
Without factories, how would the Marathas work? With the number of factories in Mumbai decreasing, many Marathas had to leave their homes and seek other employment opportunities.
Now the city of Bombay is full of South Indians, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Ron, you are doing a great job, your factory is the saviour of the Marathas."
After criticizing Ron for a while, the boss turned around and praised Ron for his contribution to Mumbai.
There are now more than 20,000 workers directly employed in the Sur Industrial Park alone, a considerable number of whom are local people from Mabang.
That area has become the most vibrant district in Mumbai, with restaurants, shopping malls and bars popping up one after another around it.
It is said that a real estate developer has already set his sights on a piece of land nearby and plans to build high-end apartments for the middle class.
Sur Electric's employee benefits are well-known and sufficient to support such high-end consumption.
Thackeray was happy to see this situation, not because he was knowledgeable about economics, but simply because he thought it was a good thing for the Marathas.
"I like Mumbai very much, but I often hear gunshots on the streets recently." Ron had to bring the topic back.
"This is a hotbed of criminals," Thackeray sighed. "There are too many people who want to get something for nothing, and the city is seriously under-policed, which leads to a high crime rate."
"So we need a strong police officer to eliminate the gang threat."
"Do you have anyone to recommend?" Sacre had already reacted.
"Aij Lal." Ron uttered a name softly.
"That ignorant and stubborn guy?" Sacre still remembered Aij.
“Only a man like him can take down the gangs, right? He was responsible for the bombings, and none of those herders escaped punishment.
If another police officer had gone up there and accepted the money, he might have treated the murderer as a guest of honor."
"He has no connections with gangs?"
"This year, I've encountered twenty of them by chance, from all kinds of gangs." Ron shook his head.
"He's very brave." Thackeray nodded appreciatively.
"He is now the Deputy Inspector General of Police. In terms of his authority, he can definitely take charge of law and order in South Mumbai."
"If he does a good job, I will directly promote him to Chief Inspector of Police." Sacre said indifferently.
"No problem, I have confidence in Aggie." Ron said happily.
It’s done, I finally got this old friend out of Bandra.
Ron came to find Thackeray, hoping to take advantage of the Mumbai gang war to put Ajay back in power.
This is the best time for him to show his skills, and no one else dares to take on this job.
Last year, he was marginalized because of the Sanjay Dutt incident, and Ron felt more or less guilty.
Now, not only has he regained power, but he has also paved the way for future promotions.
The Chief Inspector of Police ranks third in the state police system and is a real core senior official.
At Ajie's age, he has a bright future.
"Mumbai's population is too large. Not only are there not enough police officers, but there are also not enough firefighters. Can you imagine? There were very few rats in Mumbai before."
"No rats?" Ron said in disbelief.
If you go to the streets now, you'll see fat rats as big as cats, completely unafraid of people.
“Really, back in the 1940s, if we said we had rats, the city’s sanitation department would come over.
They brought a fire hose, connected the pipe to a fire hydrant on the roadside, then aimed it at the rat hole and turned on the faucet.
Some people stayed on the spot, holding sticks. When the taps were turned on, water rushed out of the pipes and into the rat holes. The rats would then escape through other holes.
If the water rushed in from one side, they would hide on the other side. Once they escaped from the cave, they would be greeted by sticks.
Back then, we could kill a dozen mice at a time. Now, with the severe water shortage, we can't do that anymore.
But when I lived in Dadar, someone installed a fire hydrant in the backyard. As soon as it was turned on, a strong jet of water would spray out. That was fifty years ago.
You rarely see fire hydrants these days; the people in the slums abuse them. They turn them on and never turn them off, and the water just keeps flowing and flowing."
Well, this old tiger is reminiscing about the past again.
Ron's goal had been achieved, so he quietly stood up and said goodbye.
Thackeray was autocratic, but he kept his word.
Within two days, Ajay received a transfer order. He returned to his office in South Mumbai and officially took over the post of Deputy Chief of Police of the Southwestern Police Department.
His jurisdiction covers half of Mumbai from Bandra to Colaba, and it is this half of Mumbai that has recently accounted for three-quarters of the crime rate in the entire Mumbai.
Ajay now commands 31 of Mumbai's 72 police stations, with a staff of 10,000 officers, superintendents and inspectors.
Due to gang warfare, extortion cases in the city are rapidly increasing. With Ron's mediation, Aggie replaces six senior police captains and takes over the position.
Ron visited his beautiful new office, with its floor-to-ceiling windows offering stunning views of the Arabian Sea.
"How does it feel to be back in charge?" he asked with a smile.
"One word from you is worth ten years of my hard work." Aijie said unhappily.
"Everyone has to fight for themselves." Ron sat down on the sofa in a familiar manner.
“Before I came here, the boss told me that he hoped to resolve the chaos in South Mumbai within two months.
They expect me to come in and wave a magic wand and solve the problem.”
"Two months is not impossible."
"Um?"
"Someone will cooperate with you." Ron chuckled.
(End of this chapter)
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