‘Rizwan and I studied English together at Xavier’s. His first girlfriend is also known to me. Why did they break up? If he was alive, I’d have asked him how he could take Priyanka away from her parents at his age. To answer he’d have to be alive, isn’t it?’ This is what a classmate of Rizwan’s told on condition of anonymity. On Orkut his friends from his Xavier’s days continually reminisce about him.
Rizwanur Rehman, 30, Muslim, and poor married Priyanka Todi , 23, Hindi speaking Hindu and super rich girl against her parents’ wishes in the Bengali bastion of Kolkata. Priyanka’s dad is the owner of the pan-Indian undergarment manufacturer Lux industries. Later he was found dead on a railway track in Calcutta. Details emerged about possible police interference in their marriage. Certainly, Priyanka left her in-laws before Rizwan’s death and continued to live with her parents. If this was all then the Chief Minister of West Bengal would not have gone to Rizwan’s house and met his family.
The following questions/motives remain unanswered:
a)Why did Rizwan break-up with his first girl-friend? She, like Priyanka was from a higher social stratum than Rizwan. She went on to do her Master’s in English while Rizwan had to change career for not being able to get a berth at Calcutta University. Friends from that period remember their agony.
b) Should not Rizwan have asked Priyanka Todi to delay wedding? Remember he was 30 while she 23. What was the need to hurry for the nuptial knot? They knew each other for just a year. If Priyanka or Rizwanur could not wait longer then the motives of the marriage may be suspect. Marriage, by its very nature, is a public and social act. Though not required by law, parents are integral to anyone’s life. Because we as a nation neglect older people, we have now laws that the young have to care for the older. Yet this author maintains that neither adults nor anyone else should have the right to prevent or coerce them, leave alone kill anyone or abate suicide.
c) Why did the Kolkata police interfere and then go on record in front of the media stating their need to defend Mr. Todi, the father of the girl. Why had Rizwanur to die and how the police sounded so sure of everything they said even before they got the reports of the post-mortem?
d) How could Mr. Snehashish Ganguly, brother of Sourav Ganguly, just take Mr. Todi to meet the Calcutta Police Commissioner? If that is so easy, why cannot the public just walk in and meet him?
There are two sides to this whole saga of grisly events. The strictly legal side: who killed Rizwanur Rehman? If it was a suicide; who forced him, or did anyone forced him at all? If he committed suicide, then was he of the requisite maturity to get married at all? And why have no arrests been made till date? The other side is humane and begs some very hard questions: What role, if any, has differences in religion and politics have to play in this hue and cry in the aftermath of the death? Did Rizwan act maturely, as a man of 30 should behave in this whole saga? Why did the Police in Kolkata interfere at all?
Lastly, what will happen to Priyanka Todi? What lies in store for her? Who can help her now in her hour of need and in the future? How does it feel to lose the love of your life and your father made a mockery in your own community? Alas. We can only ask Rizwanur to take care of Priyanka from heaven for he was a guy who at least dared to confront forces bigger than himself. After all, heroes are no more. The heroic age has passed.
Comments
Congrats. A balanced story. A piece of model reporting in the New Media. Keep it up.
The article raises all the possible questions regarding the rizwanur tragedy. This case needs to be investigated very thoroughly and from various angles...a lot of questions need to be answered...
Rizwanur Rehman was a gold digging womanizer who used his teaching job to hunt for rich Hindu girls. I wonder how many other Hindu girls to screwed up.
I am a Bengali and grew up in Behala. I know how much common Bengali Hindus hate rich people particularly Marwaris. What I see here is a concerted lynching of a successful Hindu Marwari and nothing more. Bengalis don’t like Muslims either but their hatred for rich Marwaris is far greater. Women’s commission is simply stating a fact they uncovered during their interview of Miss Todi and by doing so, they simply did a wonderful job. Bengalis love in Syed Mojtuba Ali’s language :”Uttejonar agun pohano” meaning “enjoyment of the warmth of excitement” or “Hutzpah” in Hebrew. Rehman case is just another Begali hutzpah. Under Jyoti Basu’s tight fisted communist rule, Bangalis did not have any excitement in a while.
All of my 22 years in Kolkata, only thing I have seen my fellow Bengalis do is bitch, complain, and protest against anything and everything. That is how people like Jyoti Basu came to power. These communists not only hate rich Marwaris they equally hate Hindu religion. Muslims are taking advantage of the current political situation and trying to spread their religion and Urdu language in Bengal under the cover of communism. Many of these muslims would love what happened in Bangladesh. Every Hindu family has to marry one daughter to a Moslem in order to be left alone by the Moslem extremists. That is what is coming to you, stupid Kolkata Bengalis.
A very well written and balanced story indeed. I am glad that someone actually took a slightly different stance than the lynch mob baying for blood for Rizwan’s death.
A very well written story.
Some people might have different set of opinions, but you raised some vital questions regarding Rizwan’s tragedy.
Well, it is too early to give judgement about the cause of Rizwanur’s death, unless proper investigation takes place. But its really strange to see people raising questions on his character. People don’t fall in love after enquiring about the religion or calculating the financial status. This death can be a suicide or a murder. what it can’t ever be is a calculated attempt by a Muslim boy to marry a Hindu girl. C’mon guys love just happens and its unfortunate that it culdn’t stand the test of time.
But then you might be discounting the fact of what folks who knew him in college might have to say of him. He ditched his first girl-friend. She has been interviewed too. She says that Rizwan left her ’cause he though she was too high strung.
It is not a Muslim guy wanting to impress a Hindu girl.
Rather,
a POOR guy going after a RICH girl who happened to be Hindu.
The impression is : he might or might not have been in love. But the facts speak for themselves. Religion had nothing to do with till after the marriage. But empirically, money has to do a lot with all this.
All said, I declare that this is only my personal conjecture and others with more heart than I will surely see my hard-heart. I stand corrected.