The following is an excerpt from the book The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian, by journalist Neha Dixit. The book releases today, July 31.
When Babli heard that Shazeb had seen Dhoom 3, at Meenakshi Palace, a rundown single screen in Gokulpuri, she asked him to tell her the story.
He gave himself entirely to the task of narration. Just like the young Akmal. He mimicked, jumped about, contorted his face, flailed his arms like a windmill, all to convey the way Aamir Khan had conducted the heist and his impressions of Abhishek Bachchan. When telling the story he was anxious to preserve the original tempo and effect. He would carefully build up the narrative and would stop Babli from interrupting him.
She sat there, listening to him with fascination.
After that day, their storytelling sessions continued outside Salma’s house.
It was not long before he turned to other genres: horror, myth, religion or a mix of everything. ‘This very graveyard is made on a waterbody,’ he told Babli.
‘Why do you laugh? You don’t believe me?’ he asked her.
Now, the bodies that were buried float in the water beneath it, he added.
What Shazeb claimed was true. Many waterbodies in Delhi had been acquired, flattened and filled in for construction. The Mustafabad graveyard and Eidgah, fifteen minutes from Karawal Nagar, where they had been meeting for their secret dates for several months, was also built over a waterbody.
‘The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian,’ Neha Dixit, Juggernaut, 2024.
Similarly, the crematorium in Babarpur near Loni was also a waterbody earlier. In Karawal Nagar too, there had been two waterbodies: one had been encroached on by private builders and the other one had been leased out for ninety-nine years to the DTC to build a bus terminal over it.
In Gokulpur, where the Meenakshi Palace movie theatre was located, the waterbody had been encroached on by twenty-two households that had constructed over it.
‘Bodies of old people, small children, young brides, floating in water . . .’ Shazeb would make it as morbid as possible.
That was the reason why ghosts roamed around at night in Karawal Nagar, he said.
‘Oh. So there are ghosts too?’ she asked teasingly, though she felt a vague uneasiness deep inside her.
‘What do you expect? If the body does not disintegrate properly as it should according to Islam, its spirit cannot rest in peace.’
He was so matter-of-fact, she thought.
‘But in our religion, you are supposed to immerse the bones in a river to attain salvation,’ she replied.
Shazeb was impressed by her quick wit.
A few weeks after their first meeting, Babli couldn’t bear to go without seeing him every day. She couldn’t explain her restlessness or talk to anyone about it.
Babli recounts that what she liked was that Shazeb would not say those silly sweet nothings to her: ‘I love you, you are beautiful.’ He told her engrossing stories and they talked. Most men she knew just did not know how to communicate. Her friends had told her that their boyfriends would come to meet them, stand next to them or at a distance, look at them or look at their phones, or exchange side glances, and sometimes leave without saying a word.
Meanwhile, the HKRF [Hindu Kanya Raksha Front] had been tasked with preventing the upcoming 2014 Valentine’s Day celebrations in the nearby areas. The Bainsla brothers had been told that it was against Indian culture. Unlike love jihad, where they had to keep an eye on Hindu–Muslim couples, this time, they were to target young couples regardless of their religion.‘Western culture of boys and girls shamelessly meeting each other in public needs to be uprooted,’ Prabhu told Babli’s cousin Tinnu.
Tinnu didn’t care much about this. Except that it was an opportunity to roam around in the neighbourhood markets, parks and malls. Mahesh encouraged Tinnu to volunteer, thinking it would help garner some political clout. That might help him with getting municipality permission to build one more floor.
The volunteers were also supposed to encourage young people to instead celebrate Matri Pitru Poojan Diwas, Parents’ Worship Day, to save themselves from ‘immoral acts’ like celebrating love. When Babli’s other cousin Golu told his classmates they should put tilak on their parents’ foreheads, most boys laughed. ‘You become Shravan Kumar. We will become Shah Rukh Khan,’ said one of them, Rahul, extending his arms in the signature style of the Baazigar actor, who was now known as King Khan in Hindi cinema.
The day finally came. Babli knew it was a long wait for the bus. Even so, she kept gazing at the road. There was not a single tree along this path. Nearby, there was a wooden shanty with two water pitchers from the Hanuman Mandir Trust and an old beggar, his eyes glued to Babli’s hands. Beside him was a dog, also eyeing her hands. She was holding a burger that she had made for Shazeb. Often, she would take bus number 324 to Mustafabad Eidgah, where Shazeb would come to meet her at lunchtime, just after her school ended. She had told her mother she had extra classes this whole week because the school year was going to end, so she could meet Shazeb.
As a break from their everyday tiffin of parantha and vegetables, Babli had been packing a special tiffin for the three boys and double for herself. She was fond of fast food and made chowmein, momos, fried rice, idlis, paneer sandwiches and now burgers herself. She would give half to Shazeb at Eidgah every day.
Golu had been noticing Babli’s sudden interest in cooking.Virender had told him to keep an eye out for local girls who were coming home late after school. On 14 February, volunteers were also assigned to keep an eye on bus stops and restaurants. That day, Golu was to watch the Delhi 94 restaurant, which was just next to the bus stop.
‘Apart from the beggar and the dog, he was watching me too,’ recalls Babli.
He followed her on a bike with Prabhu. He froze when they saw that she was going to a Muslim graveyard. Prabhu immediately called Virender, ‘Love jihad case here. Come quickly.’
Golu requested him to let this one go and promised to see to it that Babli got such a good thrashing at home that she would never dare do such a thing again.
But Virender, who was meanwhile keeping a watch on young people in the local market, alerted other boys and started making phone calls to mobilize a mob. Bobby, who was buying a spare part, overheard the conversation. ‘Bike mechanic Shazeb, the one Veer Bahadur caught about the sleeper cell – he is roaming around with a Hindu girl.’
When Bobby called up Shazeb he was explaining to Babli how to remove the tyre and mudguard from a bike to fix the front shocker.
‘Shazeb, the HKRF guys are coming for the two of you. Run!’ said Bobby.
‘Run where? Babli is with me,’ he replied.
‘If you both want to live, just go,’ Bobby said.
Babli had also heard him and told Shazeb they should move fast.
There was no time to think.
They quickly got on his bike. Babli asked him to drive towards
Majnu ka Tila, the hillock of Majnu, named after Majnu, a lost, desperate lover.
§
‘Rescuing one girl is the same as saving 100 cows. One Hindu daughter equals 100 holy cows,’ Virender told a few young boys who had gathered at the Mustafabad Eidgah.
Several small teams were formed to look for Shazeb and Babli. Shazeb started getting incessant calls on his phone which he was scared to take. Neither of them had been to Majnu ka Tila before but Babli had heard about it from a friend who had been there and waxed eloquent about the clothes, the food, particularly momos, and the tiny Buddhist places of worship. These had been set up by Tibetan refugees following the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when the Dalai Lama went into exile in north India.
Babli and Shazeb roamed around in the narrow lanes of the Tibetan settlements. Somehow she was not scared at all. That bothered Shazeb.
‘Let’s go home,’ he said.
Babli was reluctant. ‘If we go home, they will kill me and perhaps you too. If not, they will get you arrested,’ she said.
Also read: Raising ‘Love Jihad’ Bogey, Yogi Threatens Death for Men Who ‘Hide Identity, Disrespect Sisters’
She had heard Tinnu and Pillu talk about how Virender and Prabhu had earlier ‘rescued’ girls who had dared to choose their own partners, even if both parties were Hindu.
Tinnu had even told her that they separated the girls who got married to Muslim boys and got them remarried.
‘So what do we do now?’ asked Shazeb.
‘Let’s just elope,’ Babli replied instantly.
‘What does that mean?’ Shazeb was shocked.
Babli said, ‘They will anyway get me married next year to some dairy owner’s son. From taking care of one set of buffaloes, I will take care of another set. How will that change my life?’
‘But what about my family? They will go after them,’ he replied. ‘Call them,’ she said.
When Shazeb called Syeda, she was already at the police station.
Veer Bahadur had picked up Salman to grill him about Shazeb and Babli. It was a usual tactic. Detain the family members to trace the accused.
The same day, eight girls from a private school in Karawal Nagar had gone missing. There was also an unidentified body found in a sack near the nala, news of which was flashing on all local news channels. Several parents, local RSS guys, higher-ups, and MLA Gopi Bisht’s office, had been putting enormous pressure on the police station and driven Veer Bahadur to the end of his tether.
‘Wasn’t Shazeb questioned for running a sleeper cell?’ Veer Bahadur asked Kailash.
Kailash confirmed it.
‘Jihadis, all of them!’ Veer Bahadur yelled.
That was when Syeda’s phone rang. She went out and told Shazeb to immediately come back.‘They will frame Salman if you don’t come. Get the girl back too,’ she told him.
Ramesh and Mahesh Bainsla were furious and had vented on Sunita and Kamla, both verbally and physically, for not being able to keep a watch on the girl. Tinnu, Pillu and Golu were also not spared.
Golu was thrashed particularly soundly for not dragging Babli home by her hand, for letting her escape.
Ramesh Bainsla was enraged at the uselessness of the young boys at home but did not make a spectacle of it. Mahesh was seething with rage too but he was also thinking of business. He didn’t want to offend the Sangh men but he didn’t want to create a scene that scared his tenants either – almost half of them Muslims. He was more interested in keeping this matter private.
He told his brother not to take any calls from the police or the RSS guys, and left with Tinnu and Golu to look for Babli.
Meanwhile, Shazeb was trying to convince Babli to return home. ‘We were just sitting and talking. We didn’t do anything wrong,’ he said, knowing the meaninglessness of this argument if presented to the police and the Sangh men.
They hadn’t brought any money with them, nor clothes and documents. It was late and they had to make up their minds fast.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Babli told him, ‘I am not going back home to get thrashed by everyone. There is nothing left for me there. I will stay here only.’ She later recounts that she didn’t think of the future – only that she didn’t want to go back and die. It was not fear, it was a resolve to live.
Shazeb was in two minds. What would happen to everyone at home versus the chance, for the first time in his life, to be someone’s hero, Babli’s hero. A hero who dared to do something out of this world, unthinkable and unimaginable for any boy he had ever known in his family or class. Just like in the movies.
That night, Shazeb and Babli stayed at the Majnu ka Tila gurdwara. Spending a night outside the house with a boy meant that there was no going back for a young woman like Babli.
The next day, Shazeb called Bobby from a public phone. Bobby advised him not to come back as the HKRF people were combing through every tenement and factory to find them. ‘Both of you are adults. Get married and finish it off. Then they can’t do anything to you legally,’ he said.
‘Bobby bhaiya is right. Let’s get married,’ Babli agreed.
Shazeb hadn’t thought this moment would come so soon and so unexpectedly. He liked Babli, he loved her too, in the sense that he wanted to be with her. But he hadn’t yet thought seriously about spending his life with her, or the technicalities involved in making that happen, considering both of them were from different religions.
He wanted to set up a bike modification shop, and what about Babli? Didn’t she want to become a teacher?
‘My becoming a teacher is more possible now by marrying you rather than going home. And I love you and want to be with you,’ she declared.
Shazeb’s reluctance was making her angry. ‘You don’t love me or what? Then leave. I can take care of myself,’ she said.
That was when Shazeb said, ‘Let’s get married.’
Tis Hazari court was just fifteen minutes from the gurdwara. Babli had seen in the film Ahista Ahista that Hindu–Muslim couples could get married in court. They decided to go there the next morning.
They reached at nine the next morning. Several lawyers in black coats were waiting at the gate offering their services: ‘Bail. Challan. Shaadi.’
Babli and Shazeb stopped a lawyer and asked about the wedding procedure.
They were informed they could get married under the Special Marriage Act. Any unmarried, sane, consenting adults, where the man was over twenty-one years of age and the woman was over eighteen, and who were unrelated within the degrees of prohibited relationships, irrespective of faith or caste, could get married under this law. It required no ritual. They immediately agreed to do this at a fee of Rs 5,000 to the lawyer. Bobby had agreed to loan them the money.
The lawyer told them that in order to file their application, they needed to provide copies of their permanent addresses, Class 10 certificates to prove their age, and copies of any rent agreement, electricity or water bill, and Aadhaar cards. He informed them that copies of identity proof and photos of three witnesses were also needed but that he could arrange those as part of his fee. Once the complete application was submitted to the SDM’s office, a public notice announcing their intention to marry would be pasted outside that office. And the notice would be dispatched to their families.
If no objection was received from anyone in thirty days, they could get married.
‘Thirty days!’ Shazeb yelped.
‘But this was not shown in the film,’ Babli said to the lawyer, on the verge of tears for the first time in two days.
Also read: Fighting For Interfaith Couples Whose Marriages Are Attacked As ‘Love Jihad’
They didn’t have any of the documents they needed, and where would they go for thirty days! They would be caught and killed for sure, Babli said.
The lawyer then suggested that either one of them could convert and then they could get married under either the Hindu Marriage Act or Islamic law. That could be done in hours.
No notice would be sent to the parents if they took the ‘regular’ religious marriage route, the lawyer said.
While they were discussing their options near the SDM’s office, they saw some young men rigorously scanning the noticeboard that announced the wedding dates of couples planning to marry under the Special Marriage Act. The lawyer told them they were members of the Hindu Kanya Raksha Samiti who kept an eye out for such marriages.
Shazeb and Babli left quickly. Shazeb called Bobby once again and told him about the impossibility of a court wedding. Bobby told them to take the night bus to Manali. There were plenty that left from near the Majnu ka Tila gurdwara, as lots of Tibetans regularly travelled from there to meet their families settled in Himachal. He would arrange something for them there. That night they took the bus, both of them going to a hill station for the first time in their lives.
The next morning, they had a choice between a quick Arya Samaj wedding and an Islamic wedding. Since marriage registration of Muslim weddings – for legal documentation – was not mandatory then, they decided to go to the mosque and get married by a qazi known to Bobby. Babli had to convert to Islam and she chose the name Soha after Soha Ali Khan, the actress in the movie Ahista Ahista. They were married by the afternoon; by the evening they had done two rounds of the mall road in Manali.
Babli was very happy, Shazeb was too, but he was also thinking of everyone at home and was aching to make a phone call to Syeda. But Bobby had advised against this.
It had been a week of Salman being forced to visit the police station every day. The eight schoolgirls who had gone missing had actually gone to Nainital for a picnic! They didn’t tell their parents because they would never have been allowed to go. The dead body was also identified. It was a local labourer who had been killed by another labourer because he saw him meeting his wife. So the pressure was off the police for now. But what was to be done with Salman?
Ramesh and Mahesh Bainsla had met MLA Bisht and made a declaration that for them Babli was dead, that they would never accept her even if she were to return. Syeda approached Sanawur. He took the local maulvis from twenty mosques in the vicinity to Bisht to promise they would vote for the BJP in the upcoming 2014 general elections. Bisht’s office then called Veer Bahadur and asked him to stop summoning Salman to the police station.
Of course, Virender, Prabhu and the local boys were upset with this compromise but their activities got a new impetus thanks to this scandal.
They printed and distributed pamphlets to protect Hindu girls. These said: ‘Young girls with mobile phones are the ones who bring dishonour to the family by chatting with boys. Parents should keep a check on that. Once the BJP comes to power, they will push towards a law to stop inter-caste and interreligious marriages.’
They also started taking promises from Hindu landowners not to rent to single Muslim boys, which was followed for some time. But it wasn’t a good business prospect in the long run so at some point people again started renting to whoever was interested.
Within three months, in May 2014, the BJP under Narendra Modi won a landslide victory, and Modi was elected as an MP from the Varanasi constituency, Syeda’s home district. The BJP formed the government at the Centre, whose credit Virender and Prabhu take till date.
Ramesh and Mahesh Bainsla became Bisht’s favourites.They had not only upheld ‘Hindu values’ by disowning their daughter who had brought ‘dishonour’ by marrying not just a person of her own choice but also a Muslim man. And they had also provided three men, Tinnu, Pillu and Golu, as full-time volunteers for Hindu fundamentalism.
Also read: For Hindutva Gang, and Now UP Police, Each Hindu-Muslim Marriage Must Be Probed for ‘Love Jihad’
Babli and Shazeb didn’t come back. Shazeb often thought of what Ghazali used to say about him: that he ‘lived in the present’. Shazeb had to. There was no choice. He found a job at a garage near the Manali bus stop. Babli was happy to slowly create a new world for herself that included a lot of momos and cool breezes.
‘Babli did some black magic on my son,’ says Syeda. ‘He wouldn’t even look at girls. He was only interested in bikes and watching movies,’ she continues, not able to come to terms with her son’s sexuality and life choices.
Syeda thought Babli needed to tone down the better-than-thou attitude of the youth, which Reshma was acquiring too.
Syeda had hoped to get a dowry for Shazeb’s wedding, which could have been used for Reshma’s wedding. That was what she had grown up witnessing all her life. Recycling the daughter-in-law’s dowry to provide for the daughter. But this wasn’t an option now.
The income that Shazeb used to bring home was also gone. She was most hurt by the selfishness of this episode, that Shazeb and Babli had thought only of themselves and not about anyone else, something she was never allowed to do. She cursed Babli under her breath and never forgave her for the spell she had cast on her son.
Neha Dixit is an independent journalist based out of New Delhi. She covers politics, gender and social justice in South Asia.
