A story of love, sex and deceit

Yesterday, after finishing Meenal Baghel’s Death In Mumbai, I had to rush to Ambience, the biggest mall in Gurgaon and, perhaps, as advertisements claim, in Asia, for a 10.30 am film show. I was early and had 20 minutes to kill. So I stood outside the multiplex, sipping coffee, my eyes trained on sleepy, lovey-dovey couples walking around, their bodies stuck together as if pulled by the force of their passion. The crush and clash of baroque mansions and tall glass buildings buzzing with ambitious, hormonal, young out-of-towners in cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Gurgaon is now an old story. We have all encountered them in news items about drunk driving, pub brawls, a murder here and a suicide there. These youngsters always intrigued me, but yesterday they scared me. My eyes wouldn’t leave them. I didn’t find them cute; I sensed simmering tension. I was looking for signs of possessiveness, and if the girl frowned, I flinched. Death In Mumbai had gotten under my skin. It is that kind of a book. We already know the outlines of the 2008 Neeraj Grover murder case that involved Maria Monica Susairaj and her boyfriend Emile Jerome, and yet this book is scarring. That’s because as you read Death In Mumbai: A True Story, it dawns upon you how quickly life can go from rosy to gory, how soon seemingly benign people can turn malignant: Maria arrived in Mumbai on April 29, 2008, and though she knew Neeraj from before, that’s when they started dating, having sex. Neeraj was dead seven days later, killed by Emile, Maria’s naval lieutenant boyfriend, on the morning of May 7, cut into pieces, stuffed into suitcases and plastic bags and burnt in the jungles of Manor. The pointlessness and finality of the brutality hits you hard. And when Baghel takes us to Kanpur, to Neeraj’s parents’ house and the stationary shop his father Amarnath Grover was hoping his son would take over some day, the tragedy comes home.

On May 6, 2008, 25-year-old Neeraj, a TV executive who had worked with Balaji Telefilms and was now employed with Cinevista as creative producer, went missing. He had last been seen with 28-year-old Kannada film actress Maria, his latest girlfriend. Neeraj, who spoke with his mother twice a day, everyday — at around 10 am, and at 11 pm — didn’t answer the 130 calls the Grovers made on May 7. So a missing report was filed, his father rushed to Mumbai and changed that to an abduction complaint. By the grace of a TV reporter, Neeraj’s case was taken over by Mumbai’s Rakesh Maria and his Crime Branch’s Unit IX. By May 21, after hours of interrogation by investigating officer Satish Raorane, Maria confessed, Emile was arrested, and Neeraj’s burnt body recovered, along with the murder weapon. The cops picked up finger prints and blood scrapings from the walls and doors of Maria’s flat, they had bloody clothes and the car that was used to cart Neeraj’s body, along with forensics reports and blood samples. But all this evidence and Maria’s confession didn’t answer one question — Why As Baghel writes in the preface: “Here were three people blessed with many favours through their lives — they were young, educated, each talented in their own way, beautiful, and from comfortable middle class backgrounds. What dark undercurrents in their personalities drew them to one another What really transpired through the night of May 6 and 7 that led them to lose control, and erase the possibilities that life offered ” Baghel pieces together the answers to these questions through piercing interview. There is a long cast of characters and Baghel has interviewed them all — from family members to friends, from former lovers to pals, and, of course, the accused. A third exiciting dimension is added by three profiles, of Ekta Kapoor, Moon Das and Ram Gopal Varma — three “characters in search of a film” who feed the dreams youngsters like Maria and Neeraj live on, and then feed off them when those dreams turn sour. In November 1959, four members of the Clutter family were gunned down by two robbers. This little piece of news arrested Truman Capote’s imagination and he travelled 1,700 km from New York to Holcomb, Kansas, and gave us In Cold Blood. Capote didn’t just witness the hanging, but became a part of the story, embellishing it with his full participation. But Baghel, like an Olympian diver, uses Neeraj’s murder as a springboard, to jump up for a quick but intense scan of what their Mumbai was about, and then takes a “perfect 10” dive into the lives and minds of Maria, Neeraj and Emile. But, like an ace diver, she does it without a splash. An extremely perceptive interviewer and eloquent raconteur, she gives us vivid sketches of people and places, pauses at poignant moments, like when Amaranth was sticking missing posters outside Maria’s house and she passed by without saying a word, beginning almost each paragraph with a fact and signing off with an insight. Her writing is both neat and brilliant. But Baghel doesn’t create the story, she just reports it. Her honesty and humility are rare and humbling. A gentle, unobtrusive reporter, she serves the story as it is, without putting a hair out of place, and leaving things as they were when she entered. There’s Neeraj, “the lean and hungry hop-skip-jump man”. A “C-grade Casanova”, he was, according to his Coffee House Nomads gang — Nishant Lal and Deepak Kumar, indiscriminate and desperate for women. Maria, shrewd, manipulative and of “ineffable sensuality”, seemed confused to Neeraj’s friends. Though Neeraj had helped her audition for Draupadi’s role for Balaji’s upcoming TV show, Mahabharat, they couldn’t quite figure her out. She sang well, but hardly spoke. She had taken dance and acting lessons, starred in Kannada films, done item numbers and participated in Kuniyona Baara, the Kannada version of Nach Baliye, and yet she was in Mumbai, living in her friend Deepak Singh’s flat, looking for a break. As Baghel goes in search of the real Maria to Mysore, we meet a girl who was secretive, had no friends, grew up surrounded with rumours of liaisons, and had now, at age 28, after some plastic surgery, pinned her hopes on two men: Neeraj, who had given her the impression that he was close to Ekta Kapoor, and Emile, whom she wanted to marry. But Emile’s family, protective and proud of their super-achiever son, disapproved of her. Though Emile’s own voice is missing from the book, because he was, in Baghel’s words, “least forthcoming”, the man she uncovers through interviews was, by reputation, a “stud”. A brilliant student and cadet, known for his “unconditional loyalty”, he spent evenings watching Sansani at the naval base in Kochi, was earnest, orderly, polite but also had a temper. “A polished guy, but one who could not bear to be fingered”. Divided into eight crisp chapters, the story of Neeraj, Maria and Jerome, is anchored in Oshiwara — Mumbai’s colony of dreams erected on reclaimed land. This world comes alive when Baghel goes to meet Ekta Kapoor, Moon Das and Ram Gopal Varma. We enter this world at a time when 10 films inspired by Neeraj’s killing had already been announced. Ekta planned one, Ram Gopal Varma got access to Maria’s flat and quickly shot one, and Moon Das was waiting to star in another one. The narrative here is full of delightful and disturbing anecdotes, of bizarre parties, tarot card readers, clairvoyants and Moon Das’ own tragic story — on November 22, 2007, her boyfriend Avinash killed her mother and uncle before turning the gun on himself. The most fascinating character, obviously, is Ekta Kapoor, with whom Oshiwara has grown and prospered. Sharp and yet superstitious, the Gayatri Mantra plays continually in her office and home, and she won’t change her tattered platform slip-ons because she considers them lucky. And then there is Ram Gopal Varma who released the trailer of his film Not A Love Story on the day of the judgment in the Neeraj Grover case. Like Varma, I have a voracious appetite for gore and that is one thing I found missing in Death In Mumbai. Though we know that on May 6, when Emile called Maria, she asked him to call on Neeraj’s phone and then he heard Neeraj say, “What kind of a fiancé is he when his girlfriend needs another man to be with her ” We also know that Emile immediately flew down to Mumbai and was soon making love to Maria next to Neeraj’s still and bloody body. But I would have liked more details — of what transpired in the room on the morning of May 7; who made the first move; where was the knife lying when Emile grabbed it; what had it been used for the night before. But that would have meant sensationalising the story and Baghel, it is clear, didn’t set out to do that.