(DNA 24 December: Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim to retire on 60th birthday)
Here’s the alleged draft of the resignation speech:
Dear thugs, hoodlums, crooks, shady generals, politicos and Arab princes,
Thank you for coming to my birthday bash and for your wonderful gifts. I am touched by the diamonds and Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers. I hope you had a good time, especially when I blew up my birthday cake shaped like the Bombay Stock Exchange. That brought back wonderful memories.
But every Don has his day. I turn 60 today. You all know how passionately I loved my work. Nothing delighted me more than dreaming up an extortion racket, masterminding a kidnapping, devising a strategy for smuggling drugs. Unfortunately, with age, the passion has dimmed. Kidnapping has become a chore, murder a bore, drugs a snore.
I’ve tried yoga and tai chi and meditation and spas and it’s not working. That is why, dear criminals, it’s time to retire.
Villains, please don’t cry. As the Joker said in The Dark Knight, ‘Why so serious?’ I have fulfilled all my professional ambitions. I’ve become India’s Most Wanted. What’s left for me to achieve? D Company is now a 10-billion-dollar multinational enterprise. I have put in place Six Sigma quality control mechanisms in kidnapping and extortion. I have instituted ‘just-in-time’ murder. Our receivables collection-cum-arm twisting techniques are state-of-the-art. Our return on capital is the highest, leaving even the Russian mafia in the dust.
{{/usCountry}}Villains, please don’t cry. As the Joker said in The Dark Knight, ‘Why so serious?’ I have fulfilled all my professional ambitions. I’ve become India’s Most Wanted. What’s left for me to achieve? D Company is now a 10-billion-dollar multinational enterprise. I have put in place Six Sigma quality control mechanisms in kidnapping and extortion. I have instituted ‘just-in-time’ murder. Our receivables collection-cum-arm twisting techniques are state-of-the-art. Our return on capital is the highest, leaving even the Russian mafia in the dust.
{{/usCountry}}As I look at the eager young delinquents here, I am reminded of my youth — the first time I broke a leg, cracked a spine, slashed a throat. Those memories will never fade. Let me give you two tips. First, man does not live by bread alone — he also needs cocaine. Second, to the question ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his own soul?’ the answer is profits in the soul-losing business are humongous.
For the new management, there are huge opportunities. Supplying arms in Syria and Libya is a very lucrative business. We must diversify into opium farming in Afghanistan. Drug delivery by drones is an idea whose time has come, as is 3D printing of weapons. And there is the vast field of cybercrime waiting for us.
What will I do? I have discovered a new arena to employ my talents. Nothing in the real world can beat the video game Resident Evil in blood spattering. Have you tried Hatred, where you play a sociopath who kills policemen and bystanders with guns, bombs and flamethrowers, with people begging for mercy before being executed? Or the Mortal Kombat series, which includes spine-snapping, head crushing and dicing players into cubes? When I tire of crushing bones and spilling gore, I will play Candy Crush, crushing candy with cake bombs, lollipop hammers and toffee tornadoes. And of course, for me R.E.T.I.R.E will always mean Relaxing and Enjoying the Touchingly Impotent Rage of Enemies.
Goodbye gangsters and don’t forget to collect your return gift heroin packets on the way out.
manas.c@livemint.com
Manas Chakravarty is Consulting Editor, Mint. The views expressed are personal.