‘I am not pregnant, won’t be stoned’

Denying reports about her plight and family, Dhalal is anything but lost and helpless.

Her single-point agenda — to live the rest of her life with her Indian lover Khader Basha.

She says she pursued Basha, a driver in her household in Kuwait, and would not let go of him at any cost.

Nothing else matters to her, not even the fact that her maid in Kuwait, whose passport she stole to get here, could face deportation to India and stands to lose her livelihood.

About reports of her being pregnant, she says, ‘‘I was shifted to the hospital in Vellore because of bleeding. I have always had a problem of delayed menstrual cycles.’’

Dhalal says that even the reports about her father being a multi-millionaire are wrong. Her’s was a middle-class and orthodox Muslim family, her father a driver with the Kuwaiti government. ‘‘My mother was my father’s third wife. She died a day after my birth. I was brought up by my step-mother, my father’s second wife,’’ she says.

Dhalal had eight siblings. ‘‘My father died following a brief illness, when I was only eight years old. I was at the mercy of my step-mother and her family.

They used to beat me for no reason at all.’’

Then in October 1998, Kadhar Basha, a science graduate and the son of a poor farmer in Andhra Pradesh landed in Kuwait and was employed by the Aazmi’s as a driver. ‘‘I have even seen her brothers peel her skin and dig into the flesh with knives. All I could do was console her for hours when she was depressed. This was how we became friends,’’ Basha recalls.

‘‘When she first proposed to me, I rejected her pointing to the difference in our families and the Kuwaiti marriage laws. One cannot marry a non-Kuwaiti there. But she was adamant and I gave in,’’ he adds.

Four months ago, they decided to get married. ‘‘But we were sure we could not marry in Kuwait. We then consulted the Indian embassy in Kuwait, but they said an unmarried Kuwaiti girl was not allowed to travel abroad without her parents,’’ says Basha.

Then, Dhalal came across a news item about the use of fake passports in the local newspaper. ‘‘I stole our house-maid Seenamma’s passport and replaced her photo with mine. I then compelled Basha to book the flight tickets and we are now here,’’ Dhalal says with a smile.

When asked what would now happen to Seenamma, she says, ‘‘The Kuwaiti government cannot do anything to her except deport her to India.’’

The couple will head to Basha’s Pullampet village in Cuddapah district in the next couple of days and marry only after they sort out the legal issues.