A tragic turn

The Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) has taken strong exception to aspersions against it in a report in Mumbai Mirror (MM) dated April 7, 2009 titled "7-year-old found starved to death.” A press release issued by Godrej Dotivala, BPP’s public relations officer, notes that while the BPP is "indeed very sorry at the tragic turn of events,” it is a distortion of the facts to state, as MM has done, that "the death of a seven-year-old half-Parsi girl from hunger has rammed home the sharp reality of starvation at our doorstep and riven the Parsi community which her mother has been petitioning for help… (The child’s) death has become an issue at the ongoing polls to elect a trustee to the BPP, the community’s largest representative body and charity trust.”

Twenty-seven-year old Nisha, a non-Parsi who resides in a flat owned by the Manijeh Pirojsha Sachinwala Trust in Vasai’s Valiv district was abandoned by her husband Bejan Batlivala seven months ago, MM reported. The family lived in abject poverty though Nisha worked as a part-time domestic help in Dhobi Talao to support her three children, Farzin (seven), Arzaan (five) and one-year-old Yazaad. Rent for the flat had not been paid for a year and the family had lived without electricity for months. Neighbors told MM that the family often went to bed without eating. Farzin, who had been pulled out of school, used to mind her younger siblings while her mother was at work.

Tracing the course of events the Hindustan Times (HT) of April 8, 2009 lists that in late March 2009 Nisha locked up her three children in the flat before going to work. When the neighbors heard one of the children crying they broke open the door and found Farzin lying unconscious on the floor. They rushed her to a local doctor before taking her to Vasai’s Golden Park Hospital where the child was refused admission allegedly because the neighbors did not have money to pay for the admission. Later the child was admitted to the primary health center in Navghar where she died on April 2. The doctors reportedly found that there was not a morsel of food in the child’s stomach.

According to MM, a desperate Nisha had been to the BPP office four months ago for help, where she said she had met chairman Dinshaw Mehta who asked her to "bring proof that the children’s father was a Parsi. He wanted to see the marriage certificate. I felt humiliated, so I did not go back.” To this, Dotivala has responded with: "Bejan Batlivala was our employee from March 1, 2000 and took all his dues and resigned in September 2004. The lady came sometime in December 2008 informing (the) administration that since she was Bejan’s wife and he had left her penniless (the BPP should) give her his legal dues of gratuity, etc. She was informed that Bejan had already collected all his dues.

Clockwise from top right: Farzin, Nisha, Yazaad and Arzaan. Inset: Bejan Batlivala. Top: A divo for Farzin Photos: Hanif Patel/Mumbai Mirror

"She then met our trustee Arnavaz Mistry and had a very fruitful discussion with her… wherein Mistry had made quite a few valuable suggestions to ameliorate the pitiable condition of the family. Most importantly she had offered to get Nisha’s youngest child adopted by a respectable well-to-do family. She even phoned up the headmistress of the Avabai Petit Orphanage to get her child admitted therein.

"Also, in order to arrange for a monthly assistance for the household she was earnestly requested by the BPP staff to make an application… along with marriage certificate... She was also requested to submit the birth certificates of her three children to entitle her to obtain third child assistance. This was required to establish the bona fides of the applicant.

"She assured trustee Mistry that she would return soon with the application and the certificates. She was even given Rs 1,000 in cash by Mistry to tide her over till then. Unfortunately she never returned after that day and the tragic events unfolded,” Dotivala concludes, adding that "the BPP had gone all out to help but tragically the response from the other side was not forthcoming.”

Shahrookh Wadia who operates the solar panels at Doongerwadi recalled that Batlivala who also worked on the solar concentrators was irregular in attendance. He would keep absenting himself for three to four days at a time. Wadia cautioned him noting that he would lose his job when he had a young family to support but Batlivala paid no heed.

BPP trustee Noshir Dadrawala in a press statement recalled, "I remember meeting this lady along with her children a couple of months ago. She was standing near the staircase of the Sir J. J. School and talking to a few people. I was on my way to the BPP boardroom and a lady who seemed to recognize me asked me to help this lady in distress. I told her that it would be best if she could come and meet all the trustees in the boardroom… It is a matter of regret that the board of trustees did not take a compassionate view and demonstrate a greater sense of urgency particularly after seeing the physical condition of the mother and children and the abject state of poverty that they appeared to be living under.

"However, on my part, that evening, I met her again outside the boardroom and gave her my visiting card and told her that even if she is not a Parsi I will be able to help her through some of the cosmopolitan charities that I am connected with.

"For the record, I may also add that my colleague Ms Arnavaz Mistry immediately doled out a decent sum of money from her personal resources by way of immediate relief. Outside the boardroom, Arnavaz and I had also suggested, as a temporary measure, the possibility of getting her children admitted in a good boarding school, till such time as a lasting solution could be found.”

Darius Irani, 41, a real estate agent whose invalid mother and physically handicapped sister Nisha looked after told MM (April 8, 2009): "We are heartbroken. My mother is angry with Nisha for not telling us that Farzin was unwell. If I had known, I would have got her admitted to the Parsee General Hospital.” Nisha used to leave home at at 6 a.m. to reach her place of work at Dhobi Talao two hours later. The children would remain locked inside the flat until she returned at 6.30 p.m. Irani, who paid Nisha Rs 2,000 per month and had promised to increase it by Rs 500 later, told MM his family used to give her food and milk every day for her children. "I used to tell her not to keep the children hungry. We asked her to eat at our house so that she could save the food for the children. I am shocked that Farzin had not eaten for two days.”

On April 4, 2009 the Afternoon Despatch and Courier (ADC) had run a banner headline on its front page that read: "Starving child beaten to death by desperate mother.” Out of pity the neighbors would provide the family food, but it was not possible to look after them all the time, ADC wrote. As per the ADC report a police officer from the local police station said: "We are investigating the case and are checking with the mother whether she had beaten the girl with a wooden stick as reported by the neighbors.”

Dr Anil Kumar Yadav, in charge of the primary health center at Navghar who did the post-mortem on Farzin told MM (April 7): "The child had not eaten anything for at least two days. Even if she had been vomiting, there would have been some traces of food in the body. She had fever for one-and-a-half months and (had) not been treated. Though the immediate cause of death is anemia, we have sent samples from the liver and other vital organs for a pathological test. I also suspect the child had malaria.”

Dr Malcolm Pestonjee of Golden Park Hospital told MM that his staff reported that Farzin was gasping for breath when she was brought there. "Unfortunately, I was not there when the child was brought (in). Later I read a report in the local newspapers that said a child was killed by her mother. I was concerned about the other children and called up the police station. That’s when I found out about Farzin and the police told me that the mother had not killed the child,” said Pestonjee.

Though Pestonjee’s Vasai Medical Trust has supplied them with enough groceries to last them six months, the family is still without electricity. Pestonjee has helped further by paying to get a new meter installed and the Trust has settled the pending Rs 5,000 rent arrears for the flat, according to MM. "All issues about the mother’s non-Parsi origins apart, I cannot believe such a thing has happened… I am going crazy thinking about it,” a visibly agitated Pestonjee told MM.

"I’ll never leave my children alone at home again,” Nisha kept repeating again and again to the MM reporter. She said she had run away from her home in Mussoorie and was no longer in touch with her family (HT refers to her as being Nepalese). Her husband’s folk reside in Grant Road, "but my husband was estranged from his family. They did not accept our marriage so I could not have approached them for help,” she said, revealing that she had married Bejan at the Bandra matrimonial court on January 22, 2000. However, when Parsiana checked its records of interfaith marriages during that year, there was no record of such a marriage available.

In a letter to the MM, a copy of which was forwarded to Parsiana, Rushad Divecha writes, "Farzin was let down, not by the Zoroastrian community, but by one of its members… her father! And to a wider extent by us all.”