Death in Mumbai (9 page)

We were sitting in the veranda of the Renaissance Federation Club at Andheri where Kiran taught dance to a batch of mostly lissome, pretty women. I asked if he himself was ever attracted to her. His friend ‘FS' who had been listening in intently let out a thunderclap of laughter. Kiran offered a quieter chuckle and then a fervent, ‘No man!'

‘But I can tell you why she's so attractive to the men. In the time we were studying in Mysore, girls would walk to college, head low, holding their books protectively across their chests. If they happened to look up from under downcast eyes, we were delighted, and if they also smiled, we'd be ecstatic, ladki pati. Monica's charms are somewhat like that—she's feminine, coy, seems a bit helpless, always conveying vulnerability. Urban women these days are so aggressive, independent—they want to compete with you, conquer you. In the face of such ferocity Monica's quietly feminine charms work, I guess.'

Maria and Kiran's friendship soured when she caused trouble between him and his then girlfriend, he said. He would not go into detail about the break-up, but the scars remained. ‘Look at all the love stories, including the Neeraj–Monica–Emile triangle, have you ever heard any story where the woman goes crazy? It's always the men who go crazy in love; they have problems handling their emotions. And now with women getting so forward it has become impossible to find peace in relationships. There are no
longer any rules for them. What's formal clothing is not defined for women. They can go out at all hours, they've become like men. What's more, society has begun to accept it. Take my own case. I didn't care that Monica—who was my friend's girlfriend—was seeing and living in with another man. Back home in Mysore she would have been socially ostracized, isolated, and would have thought ten times before doing something like this. All around me I see people getting together but rarely do I find them happy in those relationships. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the men turn gay because of the way women have become.'

Away from the screaming traffic of Worli, in a quiet, minimalist flat with a stunning, sweeping view of the Arabian Sea, Udayan Patel sat behind closed doors applying salve to many a bruised psyche. I was in the office of the famous psychotherapist—the best keeper of South Mumbai's secrets—to understand the complex triggers that lead us to crime, the psychology that lets someone cut up a body while maintaining a façade of normalcy.

Udayan chose a circumlocutory route to address the issue of what is normal, and what is not. He told me a story—a real one. During the 1992–3 riots, disturbed by what was going on in Mumbai during the time, he left the sanctuary of his home one day to step out for a walk and spotted three men standing aimlessly on the ‘S' Bridge at Byculla. ‘Something about their insouciance in the midst
of such tension alerted me. I went up to them and started chatting. After a while, when they had confirmed that I was not a journalist, they asked if I wanted a colour television and a video cassette recorder for Rs 3,000. I asked them if it was loot ka maal, they said, “No, it's Musalman ka maal.” I gathered the men were rioters and since I was interested in their psychology, I gave them my card and told them I was a ‘bheje ka doctor,' and that if they ever wanted to, they could come and see me at no charge. They seemed sceptical. “We wouldn't need to,” they said.

“You will,” I countered. “When you can't sleep, when you will get headaches and when your upset stomach will not get better despite the medicines, you'll want to see me.”'

A month after this meeting he got a call from one of the men, describing the exact symptoms. ‘We spoke for a while until I asked him directly if he had participated in a killing. He admitted he had beaten up a man, slashed him with a sword, and then set him on fire. This man had then gone back home where his mother and sister had washed his bloodstained clothes and served him hot food. He ate well that day but soon after found his appetite deserting him.'

‘I dream,' he told Udayan, ‘that the dead man enters my body through the crevice between the nail and the skin of my toe and goes on to occupy my stomach. I have no appetite because he sits in my stomach, filling it.' The man had stopped eating and lost weight dramatically.

One of the side stories from Maria and Emile's murder trial at the Mumbai sessions court had been Maria's studiedly fashionable appearances.
Au courant
skinny pants, delicately patterned tops cinched at the waist emphasizing its smallness, high-heeled shoes, and impeccable make-up; it was as if denied a stab at stardom, Maria was determined to play a stellar role as herself for the news cameras. It even prompted her lawyer Sudeep Pasbola to once comment after an adjournment due to her late arrival in court, ‘Madam, please get up earlier tomorrow to finish your make-up, and be in court on time.' (Pasbola later withdrew from the case after his junior was accused of trying to bribe an important prosecution witness to change her testimony in favour of Maria.)

But as the trial drew to a close, Maria began undergoing a transformation. She ballooned to twice her size, and started wearing drab clothes. She stopped using make-up and opted for flats over the high heels she usually wore. On several occasions it happened that people who peeped into the courtroom, prompted by sheer curiosity to see the actress, walked away tsking in disappointment.

One day, during a break in court proceedings while we stood talking, I offered to leave her alone so she could have lunch, but she told me not to bother. ‘I just can't seem to eat these days, I have no appetite for food, though I can't stop binging on chocolates,' she said, pulling out a paper bag full of chocolate bars that was to be lunch and dinner. ‘That's why I've become so big.'

This self-destructive behaviour was not new. Though she often covered them with bangles, she had unmistakable
welts on her wrist that web across the length of her forearm. Since there is never any delicate way to ask such a question, I simply asked her whether she had ever tried to harm herself. ‘There had been unrelenting pressure from my family to get married though I myself had no desire for marriage. On their prodding I saw some boys but it didn't work out. Then a few years ago, my sister-in-law organized for me to meet someone.' She took Manish along to the meeting. ‘He sat at a table some distance away from us. So I met this bald man, at least ten years older than me, he was divorced but still in touch with his wife, and with whom he ran an advertising agency. I left within fifteen minutes of meeting him.'

Maria felt humiliated. For a girl who'd had especially good-looking boyfriends, the idea that her family believed this was the best she could get, was unpalatable. That night she slit her wrist. ‘Don't worry,' she smiled, as we moved towards the police van that had come to collect her, ‘I won't do it again, I love life too much.'

Choreographer Deepak Singh hinted that he saw the welts and cuts when he began to hang out with her in 2005. Less embittered than Kiran, he offered a more nuanced view of her. ‘I always found her friendly, though somewhat abrupt. Like she did not even call up to say goodbye when she left for Bangalore after her first stint in Mumbai in 2005–6, despite the fact that we had helped her find a place here. At the same time she had no qualms asking for assistance once again when she was doing
Kuniyona Baara
, the Kannada version of the television show
Nach Baliye
, in 2007. First, she wanted to know who
she should select as her partner, then later sought tips to fine-tune some dance moves. When I went to Bangalore briefly, I even went across to where she and her dance partner Vasanth were rehearsing and gave them a class.' But her time in television didn't last long. Maria rowed with the judges of the show, challenging their judgement during an episode, and walked out halfway through.

‘She struck me as terribly confused about what she wanted to do in life. She always spoke about working with her father as an interior designer, but none of the qualifications she acquired were towards that. Instead she took classes in singing, belly dancing, Latin American dance, acting.' Nor did she show any urgency about trying to get work as an actress when she was first in Mumbai, Kiran told me. ‘She didn't seem like a go-getter in terms of trying to get work.'

Maria didn't rush around studios or the offices of producers and directors, clawing for every bit of work like most strugglers. Her privileged life left her ill equipped for the rigours and humiliations of Bollywood. She found the notion of struggle romantic, but stopped at that. ‘I saw fame back home as a young woman, and I always wanted to be a dancer, open my own dance academy. I am not some desperate-for-work starlet the media makes me out to be,' she told me. Instead, during the year of her first stint in Mumbai, Maria did what she knew best, she took classes from the eminent playback singer Suresh Wadkar. She also did a few print campaigns, including one for the Mumbai police, a public awareness campaign following the 2006 serial blasts on Mumbai's local trains.

It was within a few months of this that Maria first met Neeraj Grover. Contrary to police accounts that suggest she met Neeraj just a week before his death, Maria had met him during her first stay in Mumbai, at one of the hundreds of auditions she gave, and had found him attractive. But before their acquaintance could mature into something deeper, she was signed on by actor-director Sachin Pilgaonkar to play the second lead in his Kannada remake of the Marathi film
Ekdant
, and she returned to Bangalore to work on this film, not even informing Deepak Singh.

But Mumbai's allure remained deep-rooted and Maria returned in September 2007, and rented a flat in Dheeraj Solitaire, on the same floor as she would again in 2008 when Neeraj was killed. But within two months of this second Mumbai stint, she had packed her bags and moved back to Mysore, unable to resist her many contradictory impulses. By this time she had also started her longdistance relationship with Emile.

The handsome naval officer had been a friend of her sister's at school, and it was Veronica who found him on Orkut and decided that he would be a perfect match for Maria. After her suicide attempt the Susairaj family had backed off from trying to arrange a match and asked Maria to find herself a husband instead. She enrolled on shaadi.com, but eventually found Emile on the social networking site through Roni. ‘I just saw his photograph and liked what I saw,' said Maria.

At the end of 2007, when Maria flew from Mumbai to London to visit her sister Veronica, Emile came to see her
off and even took her to Lonavla where he had studied. After that they returned to Mumbai and spent a night together at the house of Maria's former neighbour at Dheeraj Solitaire, Mayuri Prajapati.

A few months on, in March 2008, Maria came back to Mumbai for another short visit. It was on this trip that she told Deepak Singh she was engaged, and went shopping with him for shirts for Emile. But on this trip she had also met up with Neeraj Grover again. He casually let her know of his proximity to the television doyenne Ekta Kapoor, and with that merest hint of promise, all the old pulls came alive. At twenty-eight, this would be Maria's last chance at stardom: a time to redeem the possibilities that had once seemed her prerogative.

3

E
MILE

‘If there is one word to capture Emile's personality, I'd use the word stud.'

—One of Emile's course mates in the navy

N
OTHING ACCENTUATES THE
difference between small town and big city more than the fading twilight. It is the hour when the city starts to shimmer for the night ahead. At dusk, small towns start winding down—the familiar shops shut, and twilight hangs heavy as the sound of television soaps resounds oppressively, echoing a collective boredom.

On one such evening, Vinay Kumar
S
., who now works at a medical transcription business in Mysore, met Emile Jerome. They had studied together in the same school as Maria Susairaj. ‘Emile was my best friend through school, and we have remained friends since. Every time he came to Mysore on leave, he'd spend a couple of days with me.' The
last time they saw each other, three months before Neeraj's death, Vinay took a photograph of Emile on his cellphone. The naval officer looked handsome in his purple shirt, his posture erect. But it is his expression that arrested attention—at once slightly quizzical and ironically amused, as if he were biting back a chuckle.