Haji Mastan
| Mirza Haji Mastann | |
|---|---|
Haji Mastan
|
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| Born |
Mastan Haider Mirza 1 March 1926 Panaikulam, Cuddalore District (Madras Presidency now Tamil Nadu), British India |
| Died | 9 May 1994 (aged 68) Bombay, Maharashtra, India |
| Residence | Mumbai, Maharashtra, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | Film financier, film producer, film distributor, filmmaker, politician |
| Spouse(s) | Sona |
| Children | Akhtar, Nasir, Nadir |
Mastan Haider Mirza, popularly known as Haji Mastan, Bawa /Sultan Mirza (1 March 1926 - 9 May 1994) was an Indian smuggler, films financer and real estate businessman. Mastan was a Tamil Muslim who was fluent in Tamil and spoke in broken Hindi. He learnt Hindi much later in the late 1970s.
Mastan became the first celebrity gangster of the city of Bombay. He would be often seen at parties and functions rubbing shoulders with politicians, Bollywood actors and actresses and businessmen. His unique traits of dressing completely in white clothes, wearing white shoes, smoking costly cigarrettes and driving a white mercedes made him a "style icon" among the poor and uneducated Muslim youths in the ghetto areas of Bhendi Bazar, Dongri and Nagpada in south Mumbai. They tried to imitate him.
Mastan was known to be a shrewd, smooth-talking dealmaker. He had a virtual strangle-hold on the smuggling business in Mumbai for almost two decades and made a fortune. He would smartly manipulate archaic laws in real estate to earn profits.
Born in 1926 in Pannaikulam, near Ramanathapuram and living in coastal town of Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu and migrated to Mumbai Haji Mastan originally known as Mastan Haider Mirza at the age of 8 migrated with his father in Mumbai. The father and son worked long hours at a small cycle repairing shop at Charni Road which wasn’t enough to feed the family. Each night while walking home under the glittering street lights, Mastan admired the sprawling bungalows by the sea side belonging to the rich and famous and aspired to have one someday. In his early twenties, he began working in the docks where he befriended an elderly Arab gentleman who was searching for someone to help him smuggle gold biscuits out of the docks without getting suspected. The scrawny innocent looking Mastan was a perfect fit and soon he began to hide gold biscuits in his clothes and sneaked them out to the Arab without getting caught. Mastan began making a neat sum of money.
Later Mastan joined hands with Sukkur Narayan Bakhia, a smuggler from Daman to control the contraband smuggled into Mumbai and Daman from the Gulf countries. Mastan made a fortune in no time and soon fulfilled his childhood dream of owning a sea-facing bungalow at Peddar Road, one of the most upmarket places in Mumbai. Interestingly, he virtually lived his life in a small room built on the terrace of his bungalow.
Realizing that film financing was an unorganized business and film producers often struggled for money, Mastan ventured into film financing and eventually turning into a film producer himself. He also had business interests in real estate, electronics goods and hotels. He owned several electronic shops in Manish Market on Mohammad Ali Road.
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