How did the Godrej girls die?

Rarely so ever does the pursuit of a single story change the life of its pursuer Nev March will tell you that such a chase can after all be worth the while If anything it will yield a book and a successful one at thatMarch a Parsi who was raised in Mumbai and currently lives in New Jersey is the author of the awardwinning novel Murder in Old Bombay A Mystery which released in the US last year and is now being published by HarperCollins India That it is finally going to be available in her home city where a tragic double death in 1891 became the inspiration for her plot also means that this pursuit has finally come full circle It was in 2016 when March had moved away from her over twodecadelong career as business analyst and was looking at working with nonprofits that she accidentally happened to read an article in Parsi Khabar about the deaths of Bacha Godrej the 20yearold bride of law student Ardeshir Godrej who would go on to found what is today known as the Godrej Group and his 16yearold sister Pilloo Kamdin On the afternoon of April 25 1891 the two young women had gone to the University of Mumbai and climbed its 200odd steps to the Rajabai Clock Tower gallery only to drop to their deaths ldquoIt was an enormous loss The incident continues to haunt the Parsi communityrdquo she says over a video call telling us how growing up her parents would often mention the ldquoGodrej girlsrdquo as if the incident had happened just yesterday ldquoWhen two young women die in such a horrendous manner it leaves a gaping vacuum and many unanswered questions That really was the trigger for merdquoNev MarchBy 2017 having researched and read up everything that was available March decided to attempt writing a novel partially based on the event ldquoI remember writing obsessively for four months straight But once that was done I started to doubt the book To be honest I felt like I didnrsquot have the skill to do itrdquo At the time of writing the novel she already had written four manuscripts all historical fiction set in different places ldquoBut I hadnrsquot gone to writing school All my degrees were in economics and health policy So I decided to teach myself the craft of writingrdquoShe tells us how she would read novels breaking them down chapter by chapter so that she could deconstruct the plot and character ldquoThatrsquos when I realised that itrsquos not alchemy reallyrdquo Soon after March began teaching creative writing at RutgersOsher Institute and simultaneously started revising the text returning to Mumbai once too many times for her researchmdashshe even sought permission to take the narrow daunting steps leading up to the tower When the book was finally completed March remembers writing over 120 pitches to publishers in the US ldquoI was rejected one after the otherrdquoA chance submission of her unpublished manuscript to the Minotaur BooksMystery Writers of America First Crime Novel competition struck gold Not only did March win the award becoming the first Indian to do so she also bagged a publishing contract releasing her debut in the midst of the pandemic last year The novel has since been listed as The New York Times Best Mysteries of 2020 and was also nominated for five national awards in 2021 including the prestigious Edgar Award and the Anthony Barry Hammett and Macavity AwardsThe success of the book notwithstanding March says she was keen on revisiting the event for her novel because of the many inconsistencies in the case While it was presumed to be a suicide due to inconclusive evidence witnesses had seen an altercation between some young men in the hour before the death of the women This also led to an investigation and arrest A person named Manek Aslaji was tried for murder but later acquitted for lack of evidence His coconspirators two Khoja Muslim men were never found ldquoIf this was a suicide pact then to my mind for courage they would have held hands and leapt at the same time There was a gap of four minutes between the two falls which indicates something else was going on To me it doesnrsquot lend itself to the suicide theory Of course this is all speculative But then there were certain other facts that surfaced Like one of the girls had her glasses missing The glasses were never found at the site of the incident or even at home The kusti sacred thread was also not found on one of the victims There are so many red herrings in the case and I eliminated about 75 per cent of them when writing my novelrdquo she admitsShe however insists that her book is purely fictional she has only used or built upon certain facts from the original case to explore what possibly may have happened to the two women at the Rajabai tower In her book Bacha and Pilloo belong to the Framji family and the formerrsquos husband Adi Framji a character inspired by Ardeshir confident that this cannot be a suicide hires a private investigator Captain Jim Agnihotrimdashan AngloIndian war hero who has just about recovered from a bloodiedskirmish on the wild northern frontiermdashto get to the bottom of it all The Captain channels his idol Sherlock Holmes to dig into the complex web involving the suspects She even envisions her suspect Maneck very differently from what was portrayed in the pressmdashreports hinted he was a rich young arrogant man perhaps even a jilted lover ldquoThere are many different types of victims and those who are unjustly accused can also be victims I wanted my Captain Jim to have empathy for all kinds of victimsrdquo says March whose next book in the series Peril at the Exposition releases in 2022March also wanted the book to be a critique on her own community where interreligious marriages are discouraged ldquoThis is also a novel about how our social mores control us and prevent us from being our full selves It dictates whom we can be friends with and include in our sect Itrsquos a form of racism This book is a desperate plea to my own community to take note of this I do believe that the people who are promoting this orthodoxy are good generous and devout In fact I love so many of them But this thinking often results in hurt and thatrsquos why I believe it is flat out wrongrdquo