 "A still from Akshay Kumar-starrer Rustom, inspired by the 1959 Nanavati case")
It was about the end of the monsoons of 1959, and the Sessions Court in Mumbai had morphed into a local tourist spot. Hundreds of people were making detours on their regular route from work or school to gather near the building in Flora Fountain, not owing to any sudden surge in litigations, but because of unprecedented public interest in one particular legal battle: the case of Commander Kawas Manekshaw Nanavati of the Indian Navy versus the state of Maharashtra.
He arrived always in crisp uniform, medals proudly pinned at the heart. Even if he had been charged with killing his wife's lover, popular sentiment was in the sailor's favour. He could not have committed murder, some felt and some others justified it as an honourable act. Women especially thronged the court, usually well turned out. Often, it is said, they tried to catch his attention by cheering or throwing lipstick-smeared napkins at him. This was also perhaps the earliest example of trial by media in the country.
Even children who did not fully understand the situation were curious. Replicas of the "Nanavati revolver" were being sold on the streets. Jehangir Patel, editor of Parsiana magazine, remembers being let inside the house where the murder had taken place, after knocking on its door under the pretext of a boy scouts project. Historian Deepak Rao, in his early teens then, was always shushed at the dinner table while asking questions about the case. Everyone from the household staff to the local cycle repairman, recalls Hormazdiyaar Vakil, whose father SR Vakil was part of the legal defence, wanted to know more about Nanavati.
Ensconced in extramarital love, deceit, and revenge, the events were ripe for sensationalism. It helped that the three main involved were fairly affluent and photogenic. Nanavati and his family - English wife Sylvia and three children - lived in Cuffe Parade and moved in influential circles. The Parsi is described variously in articles as "tall", "handsome" and "dashing but sad-eyed", while Sylvia was a striking beautiful Portsmouth girl - petite, with softly-arched eyebrows and gentle curls. With his Hindi film villain looks, the slain lover Prem Ahuja was dubbed to be the quintessential Lothario. He lived with his sister Mamie Ahuja in the tony Nepean Sea Road area.
By most accounts, Nanavati was an upright navy man, second-in-command on the INS Mysore. His home too had looked to be a picture of prosperity, at least until April 27, 1959, when Nanavati learnt of Sylvia's infidelity during the months he had been at sea. A family acquaintance and habitual playboy, Ahuja had allegedly seduced her in that time, with false suggestions of marriage.
That day had begun innocuously with husband and wife taking the dog to the vet, picking up tickets for the afternoon show of Tom Thumb and shopping for vegetables at Crawford Market. Back home, during breakfast, Sylvia was distant and said nothing when asked what the matter was. At lunch too, Nanavati said she seemed "unresponsive" to his loving touch. Questioned about how she lost her love for him and if there was anyone else in her life, she replied, "Yes". Was it Ahuja, Nanavati wanted to know. She replied in the affirmative again. Sylvia had not been faithful, and he was crushed, stating he was going to shoot himself. He asked if she might leave Ahuja even then, but she remained silent.
Letters produced in court later showed that Sylvia was desperately in love, and since she had received no replies, it was likely one-sided. Early on in their courtship of little over a year, Ahuja had once talked about marriage but was non-committal thereafter.
Nanavati dropped his wife and children at Metro cinema in the afternoon, and drove to his ship. He sought a weapon, citing self-protection as he was going to drive through the jungles of Aurangabad. He was supposedly planning to kill himself. On a whim, he decided to first confront Ahuja at Universal Motors, a showroom for Willys jeeps that he ran. He was told Ahuja was at home. He drove there, was let into Ahuja's bedroom, and went on to fatally shoot down the Sindhi businessman who had just emerged from the bathroom and had been combing his hair, clad only in a towel. Nanavati surrendered at the Crime Branch headquarters soon after.
It is sometimes said Nanavati was an honest man until he met his lawyers. Nanavati maintained he had asked Ahuja if he would marry Sylvia and take care of the children. He was incensed, he said, by Ahuja's remark that he could not marry every woman he slept with. He pleaded not guilty, stating shots went off accidentally after Ahuja leapt towards the package bearing the gun and a struggle ensued. The public prosecutor, C M Trivedi, advised by Ram Jethmalani, raised two questions: why would Ahuja start a fight without his glasses on, and how come the towel he wore remained undisturbed even during a scuffle?
Despite overwhelming evidence against him, the nine-member jury pronounced him innocent, eight to one. Reginald Pierce, who passed on a few years ago, had been the only one to vote "guilty".
The reactions to the verdict were extreme. While the Sessions Court judge called it perverse and referred the case to the High Court, people in the courtroom and outside erupted in cheers. When Nanavati was led out to the car, they offered him flowers. The High Court later found him guilty and gave him life imprisonment, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court. But after some years in prison and given continued public support, Nanavati was eventually pardoned by Governor Vijayalakshmi Pandit. To quell any objection, this was done with the approval of Mamie Ahuja, and at the same time as the pardoning of Sindhi freedom fighter-turned-businessman Bhai Pratap who was in jail for alleged smuggling.
From the beginning, right after he turned himself in at the Crime Branch, Nanavati had been given special treatment. Unlike "ordinary felons and criminals", he was kept in an office room rather than police lock-up, then-deputy commissioner of police, John Lobo, says in his memoir, Leaves from a Policeman's Diary. He was soon moved to naval custody, a little cottage where Hormazdiyaar Vakil sometimes visited him. "It was not quite a jail but he still looked shaken up," he recalls.
Conspiracy theories have often swirled that he in fact killed Ahuja over a smuggling deal gone sour, while another version held Nanavati was protected because he knew important naval secrets. Soon after the pardon, Nanavati and Sylvia made peace and moved to Canada.
The case has legendary status in the legal world too for two important consequences, observes advocate Berjis Desai. The jury system was scrapped shortly after it, and later, the power of pardon was taken away from governors.
Any recollection of Nanavati's trial is incomplete without a mention of the weekly, Blitz. "It was the tabloid's aggressive coverage and advocacy that turned what might have been a tawdry affair into an event in the city's and nation's history," notes Gyan Prakash, professor of history who researched the subject for his book, Mumbai Fables. "Blitz took seriously the tabloid's role as the ethnographer of the city."
The story found international coverage too, in New Yorker and Time. The yellowing pages of The Times of India from that era, accessed at the JN Petit Reading Room, reveal a staid reportage. In stark contrast to front-page treatment of thrilling crimes today, this case typically remained on pages eight or nine, unaccompanied by photographs.
Eager to cash in on the high-profile murder, Blitz's editor, Russi Karanjia, set his team on the task of snapping rare images of the commander, and went the whole hog in taking sides. The paper constructed moral images for the protagonists: Nanavati was the wronged navy man, Sylvia was the repentant wife, while Ahuja was the vile home-wrecker. The approach paid off. Demand skyrocketed in those days for Blitz's explosive picture-heavy coverage by the reporter-photographer duo of Homi Mistry and B K Sanil, and copies sold for Rs 2 rather than the usual price of 25 paisa.
In a study on the subject, Sabeena Gadihoke, a lecturer at Jamia Milia Islamia, notes the various scoops that Blitz managed at the time, including snaps outside the court and forensic photographs of Ahuja's body. Archival pages of the tabloid show inventive recreation: it used line drawings set over real photos to depict how the scuffle might have played out. Even after the Supreme Court verdict, Blitz continued to revisit the story, and even carried an appeal to the President to pardon Nanavati.
The scandal gained longevity as it inspired a variety of art: books such as The Death of Mr. Love by Indra Sinha and parts of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Hindi films including Yeh Rastey Hain Pyaar Ke (1963) starring Sunil Dutt and Leela Naidu and Gulzar's Achanak (1973), as well as Gujarati and Konkani plays.
And the fascination continues as Rustom, a film loosely based on the story, is slated for release in August. Previous works were consulted to create the script and look of this film, says director Tinu Suresh Desai. But where earlier films rarely touched on the media frenzy, Rustom will explore that angle too.
A Mumbai-based distant relative of the Nanavatis says Sylvia and her children have sometimes been approached by film units but were never keen on participating in projects related to the case. "They have put that chapter of their lives behind them." Life had been traumatic for the family after Nanavati's arrest, says Vakil. The children would often come to his home, occasionally even spending nights there during the trial. They had to be moved from their school in Colaba to Lawrence School in Ooty.
After Nanavati's release and on moving countries, in the course of time, they were able to live like an inconspicuous family. The sailor died quietly in 2003. Away from the centre of the whirlpool in Mumbai, the children who live in Toronto and Ontario now, pursued careers in finance, teaching, and writing. Sylvia continues to live in Canada. Among the several people spoken to, no one knew what exactly happened to Mamie Ahuja.
Just as it appears today, back in the 1960s too, it would seem Canada was the place to go for a fresh start.
