The Kawas Nanavati-Sylvia-Prem Ahuja triangle that created a sensation in April 1959 and the early 1960s, has spawned a media industry in the last four years. First there was the movie Rustom followed by journalist Bachi Karkaria’s book In Hot Blood and in September 2019 Ekta Kapoor’s Telefilms released a 10-episode serialized Hindi drama mystery on the tragic affair, titled The Verdict: State vs Nanavati.
The title is drawn from the original court case K. M. Nanavati vs State of Maharashtra. On the afternoon of April 27 of that year the dashing Cdr Kawas Nanavati shot dead businessman Prem Ahuja, his wife Sylvia’s paramour. A Sessions Court jury found the naval officer not guilty but the judge referred the matter to the Bombay High Court which held him guilty.
Nanavati served around three years in confinement and then filed an application for pardon to the Maharashtra governor Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, endorsed by Ahuja’s sister Mamie. Nanavati, and a small-time Sindhi trader who had been convicted for misusing an import licence, were pardoned.
In The Verdict aired on September 30 on ALT Balaji and Zee5, the character of Ahuja, the debonair Sindhi entrepreneur, is played by actor Viraf Patell. "When we refer to men and women who have had or are even suspected to have had ‘affairs,’ … we, as a collective have a tendency of looking down on them as being morally inferior,” explains Patell in an email dated October 1, 2019.
"However, I always imagined Sylvia to be a woman of substance,” says Patell. A charming young girl from Portsmouth, UK, Sylvia King was only 19 when she met her future husband in 1949. The naval officer was undergoing training at the Britannia Royal Naval College (also known as Dartmouth) in New Hampshire. They fell in love, married and in the same year returned to Bombay. "Uprooted from England she went on to discover not just the joys, but even the trials and tribulations of marriage and motherhood.
With three children and a mostly absentee husband, living in the alien city of Bombay must have indeed made her emotionally mature but lonely as well,” highlighted Patell.
With thick eyebrows, wavy hair and a comprehensive knowledge of automobiles, Ahuja was not just an affable car trader, but a popular party host. He had established the Willys Jeep showroom, Universal Motors, at South Bombay’s Pedder Road. "Prem had to be a man worthy of Sylvia’s love,” proclaimed Patell. The actor said his main quest lay in conveying that quality of worthiness to the audience. "So, I had to look like everything I am not; charming, sincere, enterprising, witty, kind and courteous,” he explained with a wink.
The on-screen Sylvia is portrayed by the Swedish-Greek actress Elli AvrRam who studied the Devanagari script at Stockholm University prior to debuting in the Bollywood movie Mickey Virus in 2013. AvrRam worked on her body language and accent to resemble a British woman in order to play Sylvia. In a WhatsApp message to Parsiana she expressed gratitude for the role. "Sylvia as a character was vulnerable, and I portrayed her as such.”
"The fact was, Sylvia did not cheat for the heck of cheating; she was actually falling in love with Prem and was willing to leave her husband. So there was a difference there,” explains AvrRam. The actor, who is averse to the thought of cheating on one’s partner, resents the hypocrisy in the attitude "if a husband does it, it’s to be forgiven, but when a woman does it, it is sinning.” Stating that both acts are equally wrong, AvrRam says, "Sylvia was someone who wasn’t following societal norms, but she wanted to feel truly alive.”
Actor Manav Kaul, who plays Nanavati, did not respond to queries sent to him by Parsiana.
Did it present a challenge for Patell to empathize with a character whose death sparked differences between the Parsi and the Sindhi communities? "When I was approached to play Ahuja, my primary concern was to find out whether the screenplay writers, Rahul Patel and Pooja Tolani, had taken a dignified approach in handling the relationship. After they viewed my audition, I was allowed to read the script. I soon realized that they were fairly sensitive towards the forbidden love between Sylvia and Prem.” The notorious statement Nanavati attributed to Ahuja: "Do I have to marry every woman I sleep with? Get out before I have you thrown out” has portrayed Ahuja as a skirt-chaser. In contrast, "the letters written by Sylvia, which (as shown in the series) she was made to read out in the court by the late lawyer Ram Jethmalani prove that it was indeed a deep love that had begun to blossom,” says Viraf. "Courtroom records reveal that maybe to some extent Sylvia was the confused one, but Prem clearly wanted to marry her. A comparison of police and legal records show Ahuja purportedly replying in the negative to Nanavati asking whether he would marry Sylvia was entirely spun by his defence lawyer, Karl Khandalavala.”
Jethmalani’s son Mahesh, a senior advocate of the Bombay High Court, recalled, "I was three years old when this case first caught traction. As I matured and questioned dad about this, he clearly pronounced, ‘Nanavati was guilty and was jailed for three years for the murder he had committed.’” Actor Sumeet Vyas, who was conferred the Dadasaheb Phalke Film Foundation Award this year for his performance in Bollywood movies like Veere Di Wedding (2018) and Love per square foot (2018), played the part of Jethmalani in the series. He stated, "While preparing for the role, there was no real video evidence that could give me a glimpse into how it was fought. I tried to interpret psychologically how he would have conducted himself with the people associated in the trial.”
"The common man is conveniently led to believe that being accused is tantamount to being proven guilty,” stated Viraf. "Let’s say, it’s easier today for the media to create narratives that are suitable to powerful people than ever before. The Cambridge Analytica incident, WikiLeaks or fake video culture give us reason to be very wary of technology!” And, Rustom (Russi) Karanjia’s popular investigative weekly tabloid Blitz played a major part in dramatizing Nanavati as ‘Ram’ who slayed ‘Ravan’ (Ahuja) for seducing ‘Sita’ (Sylvia).
"The propaganda carried out by Blitz portrayed my friend as a person he never was,” a friend of Ahuja’s, who requested anonymity, flared up.
Karkaria, a veteran journalist, has alleged that part of Ahuja’s portrayal has been lifted from her book. No credit was given or payment made, she remarked. "The producer of the show has (allegedly) committed an act of piracy. When I wrote to Ekta that ‘I would like to discuss this with you and certainly I would like to have credit,’ she did not even bother to respond,” Karkaria explained.
"Prem was a well-off businessman and hosted several parties. Many women used to throw themselves at him,” recalls Hira Bhojwani, a nonagenarian who lived most of her life in Larkana in Pakistan before Partition split the country. She asserted that Ahuja, a neighbor in Bombay, was not a womanizer. Everybody adored him for his good behavior. "Though I never attended any of his parties in my building, my first impression of him was excellent. He was someone who conversed with everyone. He always wished me ‘Good morning’ whenever I met him in the lift.”
Vividly recalling the exact details even at 97, Ahuja’s friend Bhagla Sitlani, revealed that he and Ahuja were in Columbia University together but "according to my knowledge, he didn’t complete his Masters and returned within a year to Bombay.” Sitlani, who took a course in human relations, sales analysis and sales management together with Ahuja, remembered him as the youngest of three siblings. "Mamie was the eldest and Nanda (whom nobody has heard of) was the second in the family,” he stated. The nonagenarian, who bought his first car from Ahuja recalled their Karachi days, when Prem’s family ran an automobile showroom. It was Reynolds. On arriving in Bombay after Partition, they ran an agency Universal Motors for Mahindra.
"When Sylvia and Prem visited Agra along with Mamie, rumors began doing the rounds about their affair,” said Sitlani. As I got to know this, I warned him. ‘Please, be careful.’ With a sense of unease, he replied, ‘If you hear anything, please let me know.’ Sylvia reminded Ahuja of his first love, Pamela Dhawan. It was this hidden story that made me empathize with the scorned victim. If ladies enjoyed hanging around Prem or women threw themselves at his feet, how does that make him a Casanova?”
According to veteran advertising man Gerson da Cunha, Ahuja was a charmer who had relationships with multiple women. Ahuja’s unidentified friend retorted, "Can he name any one woman he remembers whom Prem pursued endlessly only to dump her later?” He added that Ahuja was involved with Sylvia on an emotional level. "What is the meaning of playboy? Treating women casually? Before meeting Sylvia, Prem was very much involved with a friend named Pamela to have actually had numerous affairs. It was Sylvia who threw herself at him. As far as I can remember, he was careful to not make a move lest it tarnish her reputation and give rise to gossip.”
As he puts it, "Kawas had nothing against Prem, and Mamie had nothing against Kawas. The shooting was done in a fit of rage that clouded his discretion.” The onscreen Sylvia, in a tone conveying tenderness stated, "If you kill a person, you are guilty of committing an act of murder. In this case, matters just turned out differently. But Ahuja certainly didn’t deserve to die.”
Speaking about the rift between the Sindhis and Parsis, Viraf shared, "I am not sure if they or the subsequent generations believe that Ahuja deserved to die. As a Parsi, I believe we went a bit too far in trying to salvage the reputation of an entitled Kawas, the country, the Navy and the Parsi community.”