But Emile’s real, if unspoken, concern was Mumbai’s infamous casting couch. It was also one of the reasons Emile’s conservative parents objected to his relationship with Maria. ‘They’d call me up and ask me to tell Emile to stop seeing her, until finally I told them, “You’re his parents, you have greater control over him, and if you can’t stop him, how can I, a mere friend, do anything? He has set boundaries for me that I cannot breach.”’
Once, when Maria was unable to reach Emile, she called his course mate to leave a message and he mentioned the family’s fears to her. ‘I know the casting couch exists in Mumbai but I don’t need to get down to it, my father is well-to-do and influential, and no one can force me,’ she had assured him. ‘And I got convinced. At least in real life she seemed to be a good actress,’ he said. ‘Still, I wanted to watch out for Emile so I pressed further: “You’re a movie star, you can get any hunk, why settle for Emile, he’s just a regular naval officer”.’ At this, he said Maria became sentimental and told him Emile’s profession or his lack of wealth was not important to her. ‘I really love him, and you must believe that.’ Though the couple was never formally engaged, she always introduced Emile as her fiancé. He was the only man she ever acknowledged to her family as her boyfriend. Like Maria, Emile had never publicly acknowledged a lover—and he too introduced Maria to his friends in the navy as his girlfriend.
When Maria was flying out to the UK to visit Veronica in December 2007, Emile took leave of absence and came to Mumbai to see her off. He took her to the hill station of Lonavla, where he had spent four years at the naval base INS Shivaji acquiring a B.Tech. in mechanical engineering. He also introduced her to one of his closest friends, Lieutenant Jitesh Saini, at Navy Nagar in Mumbai. It was a brief meeting suffused with the formality accorded to a brother officer’s spouse or girlfriend, but Emile did pull Jitesh aside to say that he was ‘serious about Monica’.
‘After one of his interminable phone calls to Monica, I’d asked him: “Are you serious or just having mazaa with the actress?” said the course mate, ‘And he told me, “nahin yaar, I really want to marry her.”’ Maria too reciprocated with serious intent. ‘“I am a very good dancer, he has two left feet, I sing really well, he can’t hold a tune, he can’t even paint,” she told me with an indulgent smile.’
So what was it that she liked about him? ‘For one, he looked my age though his mother thought I looked older than him. He had good etiquette. It’s really important to me. For instance, in jail, I can’t stand it when people speak to me using tu, tum, or re. I always say, aap is such a beautiful word, use it! I also noticed he wielded a fork and knife very neatly. Manners, discipline, and humbleness are important to me, and he had all of that.’
‘I wasn’t looking for financial stability, my father had enough money. What I liked about him was that he was from Mysore, his house was a few minutes away from ours, he was a Roman Catholic like us, everyone knew his family. I thought if something did go wrong between us, the families would be there to take care of it. I made sure all the boxes ticked. You know,’ and here she paused for a long time, ‘my mother had even planned the theme and the colours for our wedding.’
What she had not accounted for was that her reputation from the film world would spill over into the small town of Mysore—and reach Emile’s mother. ‘When her family sent a proposal in early 2008, Emile’s parents had already done a background check on the girl, and decided against the match,’ said a relative of Emile’s who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The stand-off with the family was a first for Emile. As the model, super-achieving son, he was only ever used to unqualified love and appreciation from his parents. ‘They had been extraordinarily protective of Emile,’ remembered Vinay. ‘As kids, on the rare occasion we got to go to a classmate’s home after school, his mother would always take the phone number of that boy and then call his home to find out if Emile had reached, and when he would leave. Whereas most of our mothers couldn’t be bothered as long as we got home in the time we said we would.’ His father always accompanied him when he went for a swimming class at the pool in the Mysore University campus, and later, when he joined the navy, they would speak to him every day that he was available on base.’
But after he told them about Maria, their daily phone calls were used to pressure him to leave her. Emile would politely hear them out, trying without much success to convince them that she was indeed a suitable girl for him. ‘As compared to his personality, the girl was no match for him. If you just look at her you’ll know what I am talking about.’ Such was the animosity that Emile’s relative felt for Maria, that he would not even take her name, referring to her throughout our conversation as ‘the girl’.
Exhausted by the abrasive battle with his parents, Emile called his friend Jitesh to complain. ‘Ghar pe maan nahin rahein hain’ (They are not agreeing at home). Briefly, to ease the pressure, Emile even told his parents that he had broken up with Maria. They believed him until Maria started turning up at the same church as theirs.
‘But his mother would snub me every time I made an effort to reach out to them,’ said Maria, unable to hide her hurt even after all these years. When she returned from England after visiting Veronica, she got a gift for Emile’s mother who refused it, insisting churlishly, ‘We have everything we need, why don’t you give it to one of your friends?’ Maria, who read special prayers at the Basilica at Vailankkani for her and Emile’s marriage, says whatever Emile’s parents said about her character hurt her family ‘badly’.
‘Monu, just give me some time, they’ll come around,’ Emile kept pleading with Maria, while at the same time telling her he could not decide between her and his parents, who remained adamant. ‘She’s not right for our family, don’t talk to her,’ they kept insisting, still treating him like a little boy. ‘Whenever they called me to talk Emile out of his infatuation,’ said his course mate, ‘they’d just say one thing. She’s not from our world, she will not fit in with our family.’
Unlike the Susairajs, whom he saw as arrivistes from Tamil Nadu, Emile’s father, also called Joseph—Jerome Joseph—counted his family, the Mareths, among the old genteel Malayalee Christians of Wayanad where they owned a small coffee plantation. He himself had worked in the junior management of the Bank of Maharashtra’s Bhandup branch in Mumbai, but transferred to the more tranquil city of Mysore when his sons began to grow up. The family settled in NR Mohalla, a modest neighbourhood five kilometres from the plush Bannimantap, where Maria lived with her parents and went to school.
Deeply religious, Emile’s father was proud of his two sisters who became nuns, one of whom went on to head the highly respected college of Home Science, Nirmala Niketan. His older brother was a brigadier in the Indian Army, while Emile’s grandfather had been the postmaster general of Kerala. Following his own voluntary retirement from the Bank of Maharashtra, Jerome Joseph dabbled in shares, selling LIC policies and liaising for those interested in buying or selling property in and around Wayanad. But these were diversions for him. His life’s project was his two sons—the younger Nirmal, or Tuttu as he is called at home, pursuing his masters in psychology and criminology at university in Chennai, and Unni, which is Emile’s pet name. Even as he was growing up, Jerome Joseph knew that his elder son was exceptional. Beautiful, dutiful, of a serious mien—whatever Unni set his mind to, he excelled at.
‘But the person Emile was closest too was his mother. I’ve often seen him, this full-grown man, this smart naval officer, lying down resting his head in his mother’s lap,’ his relative said. ‘She was too distressed to even visit him in jail for the first couple of years. Instead, she kept exhorting her kin to tell Emile to just, pray, pray, and pray…’
On May 8, 2008, the day after Neeraj’s death, Jerome Joseph landed up unexpectedly at the naval base in Kochi. Emile was not yet back from Mumbai, and had not been answering calls for three days. That, and some parental instinct, prompted the surprise visit. ‘He was awfully disturbed to know t
hat Emile was not at the base. “Will it not get him into trouble with his superiors?” he kept asking me,’ said Emile’s course mate.
‘When I called Emile in Mumbai to tell him that his father had arrived and what I should say to him, he said, “Just tell him that I have gone to meet Monica.”’ The next morning when Emile arrived at the base, father and son had a blazing row. ‘How could you just leave like that and go to Mumbai? You will lose your career for this girl,’ Jerome Joseph screamed with helplessness. ‘You know your mother has not been doing well but you are spoiling your life for that girl. She has money, but you, you will lose everything,’ he said, unaware how prophetic his words would be. Emile, his son, his thew and sinew, his hope, his lament, stood with his head bowed, that cupid mouth set firmly without offering any defence.
It should have been a happy realization to Jerome Joseph, but it came to him as a shock—his son had become his own man, and he no longer had the right of way with him. Any deference was mere gesture, like those men who hide their cigarettes behind their backs when an elder goes by.
‘When Emile told me of his problems at home, I felt a bit bad for his father because Emile is a determined guy and once he’d decided that Monica was the girl for him, then it would be she and no other.’ I met another of Emile’s friends secretly, away from the naval base in Kochi, and he too spoke on the condition of anonymity, afraid of adverse action from his bosses if his name came out.
When I asked him why he would take such a risk, he said, ‘Because he is the guy least heard in your story. Neeraj is the victim, Maria is the actress’—a slight curl of the lip more evocative than his words—‘and besides, she has already given a confession before the magistrate putting all the blame on Emile, so where does that leave him? I know he’ll not do anything undignified to defend himself.’
This was a theme that came up with everyone I talked to about Emile. Maria had few intimates to speak of, and Neeraj’s friends’ accounts of him—though fond and warmly spoken—often ended with caveats. It was only from Emile’s friends that I got a sense of unconditional loyalty. Maybe it’s the years in the navy where they are trained, if need be, to die for a brother officer. A course mate from Emile’s division recalls his extraordinary sensitivity. ‘While we were at Lonavla, Emile had a very public showdown with one of his peers and things became quite awkward between them until one day the other guy came and apologized to Emile, who was so remorseful that he started to cry.’
After failing to crack the Indian Institute of Technology’s joint entrance exam, which he sat for along with Vinay, Emile cleared the Naval Engineers Course in 2000. He was sent to Goa for a six-month orientation where he met his course mates who now defend him. By the time they eventually settled at the INS Shivaji, Lonavla, for the B.Tech., friendships had been forged—especially between the nineteen cadets, Emile included—from the C division.
At Lonavla, Emile, often ribbed as Emily, stood out as a brilliant all-rounder. He was a tri-athlete, achieved good grades with practised ease, did cross-country running, water skiing, and sailing, but saved his best efforts for swimming. ‘He would swim up to ten kilometres without a break, often participating in endurance swimming competitions organized at the National Defence Academy at Khadakvasla and winning the blazer,’ said the course mate. ‘If there was one word to capture Emile’s personality, I’d say he was a stud.’
There are two criteria for cadets to get to the next semester. They have to clear tests and get past a gruelling physical exam. ‘He managed to do both in the first attempt, every semester. I am making a mention of this because only fifteen per cent of the class manages to do so.’ For his accomplishments Emile was chosen to lead his division, an honour known as Appointment. He proved to be an excellent leader and teammate. ‘The navy’s rules can test the mettle of any man but Emile was always relaxed, he never snitched, and could be trusted even in the weirdest of situations. If there was any issue, it was with his temper.’
Emile, it seems, did not like being crossed. ‘If someone did not follow his instructions despite warning, he was capable of grabbing them by the collar and cuffing them.’ I was told that while this was not a common thing on the base, it was not entirely unheard of either. Emile’s battle with his temper began in his childhood.
‘At St Mathias we used to have this game, one of those stupidly cruel games only boys would play, where one person crept up from behind and shut a boy’s eyes while the rest just piled on to him, hitting and kicking,’ recalled Vinay. ‘It was a good way to rag those we didn’t like. Though Emile was my closest friend, a whole group of boys once convinced me to shut Emile’s eyes as he returned from a water break. His fury when I did so was unbelievable. Even as I held him I could feel his body shivering with the force of his anger. Okay, so you’re with them, he told me freeing himself in one heave; he was such a strong boy that instead of the others beating him it was he who lashed out at them. Within minutes those boys had all fled and I was left writhing in pain for he had kicked me also in the bargain. His anger that day was terrifying. After that episode, though we patched up soon after, I was always wary of provoking him. I was a little afraid of him, I guess.’
Another time, a social science teacher they disliked—‘she was not very bright and we let her know that’—singled out the two boys in front of the class and assigned them a project on China. ‘It was out of the syllabus and out of our league. We were given some ridiculous deadline of a day or two to complete it and I was sure we would fail, but Emile, angry and humiliated at being singled out, dragged me to the Mysore Central Library. I’d never ever been there and we spent hours poring over books on China. Then through his father, he spoke to someone who knew all about the country. The teacher was stumped when we submitted the project on time. She tried to regain ground by saying she would be asking us questions, but Emile who could be polite and insolent at the same time shot back, “Miss, read the project and you will have no question that has not already been answered.”’
His friends in the navy call him a ‘polished guy, but one who could not bear to be fingered’. Strains of this were already apparent in his adolescence. When Emile was finishing high school at Marimala Pass—after having completed his middle school at St Mathias—recounts another classmate, there was a very popular boy who was contesting for class representative. ‘For some reason he and Emile got into a scrap. Almost at the last moment, when this boy’s victory seemed certain, Emile propped up another candidate against him, a complete underdog, and championed his case so persuasively that the guy won, beating the favourite by one vote.’
Though the navy was a perfect fit for his temperament, if not necessarily his temper, it could not quite contain Emile’s ambition. He studied to be an aircraft engineer; at the time of his arrest he was a specialist in the maintenance of the Russian aircraft Ilyushin at the Naval Institute of Aeronautical Technology in Kochi. But his heart was set on becoming a marine commando.
When he heard of a vacancy he trained strenuously for months to qualify, but was not selected. The navy, combating a shortage of trained technical staff and having spent considerably on his engineering education, was unwilling to have him move streams, according to his friends. Emile himself told Vinay when he last met him in the coffee shop that he was really depressed when they turned him down and it had taken him two months to emerge from that low. He grew close to Maria during this time, and the two of them even made desperate plans for Emile to quit the navy after his engineering so they could go live abroad.
Though he couldn’t become a Marco—they were the first line of defence when terrorists laid siege on the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai on 26/11 before the National Security Guards flew in—Emile independently took the gruelling divers’ course which was part of the commandos’ training programme. Of the thirty-odd applicants from all over the country only five or six made the final cut. Emile was one of them. ‘In the navy, divers are looked upon as special people, as someone who is tougher than the rest,�
� admitted one of Emile’s senior officers. The course calls for immense physical courage, and a level of fitness far higher than in a regular navy man. The divers are trained to deal with different situations under water—from combat to rescue ops. ‘They push you to extreme limits,’ said one of Emile’s admiring course mates.
Willingdon Island in Kochi, where Emile was posted at the time of his arrest, is a man-made legacy of the British. The INS Garuda sprawls in the middle of it, offering an idyll full of old-world courtesies, exquisitely manicured flower beds and quaint cottages. Agile young officers wake up at dawn for the morning drill before going to class to study, followed by gym or basketball. The evening’s excitements can entail a trip into Kochi town for a few beers, watching the lambent twilight, or a film maybe. It is also a man’s world, with little role for women other than maintaining house or participating in the occasional navy social.
Emile and his roommate Lieutenant Vasanth often spent their evenings surreptitiously cooking in their room, watching films like The Da Vinci Code and American Pie on Emile’s laptop, or simply reading. Emile read voraciously, especially favouring books on Christianity. Pope Joseph Ratzinger’s Jesus of Nazareth was a particular favourite. When not reading or watching films, the young men relieved the tedium of the evening watching the crime show Sansani on Aaj Tak. ‘It is so melodramatic, so ridiculous that it often afforded us a good laugh… I wasn’t to know that one day I’d see Emile featuring on the same show,’ Vasanth told the police.
This was more or less Emile’s life from the time he finished school, stepping out of the security of home straight into another cocooned environment. The regimentation, the elaborate formalities, the puff and pageantry, left him utterly unprepared for the fluid mess of relationships with complex women. ‘He was aware that women appreciated him, but while he could have—I’ve seen girls hovering around him—he never took advantage of them,’ said a friend.
Death in Mumbai Page 7