‘Can a brother wreck his sister’s life because she married outside the caste? Is that justified?’

So when she met her neighbour,Prabhu Nochil,and fell in love,she again thought,“Kya hoga? Fatke hi to pandenge.” But this time,she may have pushed her luck too far. Prabhu was an Ezhava (OBC) from Kerala and the Tiwaris,Brahmins from Kanpur,would have none of it. So six months after the two eloped and married in a Bandra court on October 29,2003,Sushma’s 24-year-old brother Dilip dealt her that most crushing of fatkes. On May 16,2004,he and his friends barged into the Nochil household and went on a stabbing spree,killing Prabhu,his father Krishnan,Prabhu’s 14-year-old cousin Bijit and Abhayraj,a common friend of the Nochils and Tiwaris. Prabhu’s mother Indira and sister Deepa were critically injured.

It was all over in about 15 minutes—an appalling,dishonourable act that now goes by the name ‘honour killing’.

Sushma was suddenly all alone,20 years old and four months pregnant with her child. But she knew it was her turn to return the blow. With help from the All India Democratic Women’s Association,she took her case to court. On September 8,2006,a sessions court convicted Dilip and his friends Manoj and Sunil and sentenced them to death. A year later,the High Court upheld the sentence.

But when the case came up in the Supreme Court,Justice V.S. Sirpurkar delivered a judgment that ensured Sushma’s fight wouldn’t be over soon. In December 2009,the court reduced the death sentence to life imprisonment—25 years for Dilip and his friend Manoj and 20 for Sunil. While doing so,the court sympathetically said that “…in the society it is the elder brother who justifiably or otherwise is held responsible for not stopping such an affair… At times,he has to suffer taunts and snide remarks… Dilip must have been a prey of the so-called insult which his younger sister had imposed upon his family and that must have been in

his mind…”

The court also held that if Dilip “became the victim of his wrong but genuine caste considerations,it would not justify the death sentence… The vicious grip of caste,community,religion,though totally unjustified,is a stark reality,” the judge ruled.

“So is that what someone who goes in for an inter-caste marriage has to keep in mind? That you fall in love and someone like Dilip can come and kill your entire family? Is that justified?” asks Sushma.

Sushma,now 26,is determined to find an answer to that. She has filed a review petition,asking for death for Dilip.

Sushma’s story

Sushma was the youngest of four children of Prem Narayan Tiwari,a mill worker,and Tulsa Devi. The family moved to Mumbai from a village near Kanpur in the early eighties. The children—Pradeep,Kalpana,Dilip and Sushma—grew up in Mumbai but were told to live by the rules,“the way it is in UP”,Tulsa Devi told them sternly. And as they grew up,the boys set the rules and the girls followed them—again,“the way it is in UP”.

But Sushma,the youngest,played the “rebel”—visiting her friends outside the chawl,secretly enrolling in a sports club in Vasai,wearing her brother Dilip’s trousers,leaving for 15-day NCC camps. And each time,Dilip—“he had a nasty temper,” says Sushma—thrashed her. The blows were harmless,

she thought,just a part of

growing up.

And anyway,she had her secret hideaway. The Nochils lived two doors away,in the same chawl,and she was friends with Deepa. To Sushma,the Nochils—Prabhu,his father Krishnan,sister Deepa and mother Indira—seemed “normal”; at least nobody beat anyone else,they “cooked the most amazing non-vegetarian dishes” and of course,there was Prabhu,two years older,without a formal job and all the time in the world for her. Prabhu helped his father run their milk business and tended to their cows and buffaloes. The family also owned nine other rooms in the chawl. It didn’t matter to her that he was an “Ezhava” from “Nandikara” in Kerala’s “Thrissur” district—all impossible tongue twisters for Sushma but those were modest complications. So when Prabhu proposed marriage,Sushma,then in her second year of BA,thought she would dare that ‘line’ again.

But this time,she may have crossed too far.

Trouble begins

One evening,when Sushma’s mother spotted her and Prabhu together in the chawl,she beat her and threatened her,saying,“Wait till Dilip gets back.” That night,Sushma was spared the blows. Instead,her brother and mother decided to pack her off to Kanpur the next morning. But Sushma had to leave for her 15-day NCC camp to Uran,part of the Navi Mumbai township,the following morning. “I lay in bed that night thinking what I should do. I didn’t want to miss the camp,I didn’t want to miss Prabhu and I certainly didn’t want to go to Kanpur,” she says with a laugh,amused at her own audacity.

So next morning,with hours to go for the train to Kanpur,when her brother was still sleeping and her mother was in the bathroom,she picked up her bag and took an autorickshaw to her friend Khushboo’s house. From there,they left for the NCC camp. “No one at home knew where the camp was; they weren’t interested. All they knew was that I would go for this camp and that they would beat me after I got back,” says Sushma.

After 15 days of the camp,Prabhu got in touch with Sushma and the two met at Prabhu’s aunt’s (he called her ‘eleamma’) home in the city’s western suburb. Eleamma and another of his aunts,who he called mema,lived close by. “Prabhu told eleamma and her husband Balan paapan (uncle) that we wanted to get married. Balan pappan tried to talk us out of it,saying there were huge cultural differences and of course,the caste angle. But Prabhu was adamant. So the next day,on October 29,2003,we got married.”

After the wedding,Sushma went straight to Prabhu’s house in Khair Pada. It didn’t take long for word to spread in the chawl and she later heard that her mother was inconsolable. But strangely,she says,all was quiet after that. Sushma continued to go to college but never took the front route out of the chawl for fear of running into her family.

And then,one day,her elder sister Kalpana,married and living in UP,turned up in college. She tried convincing Sushma that Prabhu wasn’t worth this fight,telling her,“Kya dekh ke Prabhu se shaadi kiya? Na rang roop me achha na kuch aur… (Why did you have to get married to this good-for-nothing?).” And then,another day,her mother came to her college,clamped her wrists and asked Sushma to go back with her right away. “I told her I would think it over. But I was only thinking of how to

free myself of that grip.” That evening,Sushma told Prabhu that her family won’t give in

that easily.

So the Nochils decided that Sushma would stay in eleamma’s house till things cooled down a bit. She stayed there for 10 days. “Then on May 16,2004,eleamma’s son Bijit went to Prabhu’s house to spend his vacation. I stayed back because Prabhu said he would come two days later to pick me up,” says Sushma.

The killings

That night,around 1.15 a.m.,the Nochils heard a knock on their back door. Prabhu’s father Krishnan opened the door and Dilip and his friends Manoj,Sunil and another person barged in,armed with knives. They stabbed Krishnan and when Prabhu tried to intervene,Manoj stabbed him in the stomach and chest. Dilip later asked his friends to take Prabhu out of the house and kill him. The attackers then assaulted Deepa,Prabhu’s mother Indira and Bijit. And when Abhayraj,their neighbour,rushed in to help,the attackers chased and killed him. And then,they left.

Deepa,though injured with multiple stabs,managed to call Balan,who reached Khair Pada around 4 a.m. to find his son Bijit and brother-in-law Krishnan dead. The others,Deepa,Indira and Prabhu,lay writhing in pain. Prabhu died on his way to hospital but not before naming Dilip,Manoj and Sunil as the attackers.

“Dilip did this six months after my marriage. He had obviously planned the attack; it’s clear that it wasn’t some burst of emotion. If it had been,he wouldn’t have waited that long,” says Sushma.

The fightback

Thirteen days after the killings,Dilip was arrested from UP and the case went to the courts. But Sushma had other battles lined up. A few months later,Sushma gave birth to a baby girl,Sonu. “AIDWA not only fought my case,they also counselled me and helped me move on—both financially and emotionally,” she says.

So the four Nochil women—Sushma,Deepa,Indira and little Sonu—moved into a rented house,close to where eleamma and mema lived. Deepa recovered from her wounds but Indira,a diabetic,never did. “Amma seemed to have gone into a shock after the incident. But never once did she or Deepa ever blame me for what happened,especially when you would think it’s the most natural way to react. They had lost everyone because of my brother.” Two years later,Indira died of complications from the attack.

Last year,Deepa married her cousin in Mumbai and now,Sonu and Sushma live in a house in the suburbs. Sushma works in a computer firm and is studying for her MBA through correspondence. Sonu goes to school,“talks without a break,sometimes even asks me where papa is and tells me I should take up Malayalam classes to be able to speak the language like her. So when I need a break,I send her off to mema’s house. She is there now. They are the ones who have brought her up. They are my family,” says Sushma.

And her parents? “I don’t know,” she says with no hint of emotion. “I heard from someone that they had sold their house here and are in UP. I really don’t know.”

“Can I leave now,” she asks at the first break in our conversation. “I have to meet Sonu and then eat my lunch there. I can’t wait for the meen curry.”

Sushma,26 years old,in a black checked shirt and black jeans,is finally living life. Would she have lived these years differently if she had a chance?

“No,I am glad I did what I did. Because if I hadn’t,my family would have got me married off to someone in UP,where I would have to spend the rest of my life behind a veil. They would have wrecked my life anyway. At least now,I live the way I want to,” she says.