Review: Aarushi by Avirook Sen

Book: Aarushi

Author: Avirook Sen

Pages: 268

I read it on: My Kindle

I read it in: 3-4 hours

Plot Summary: Seven years ago a teenage girl, Aarushi Talwar, was found murdered in her bedroom in Noida, a middle-class suburb of Delhi. The body of the prime suspect—the family servant, Hemraj—was discovered a day later. 

Who had committed the double murders, and why? Within weeks, Aarushi’s parents, the Talwars, were accused; four years later, they went on trial and were convicted.
 
But did they do it?
 
Avirook Sen attended the trial, accessed important documents and interviewed all the players—from Aarushi’s friends to Hemraj’s old boss, from the investigators to the forensic scientists—to write a meticulous and chilling book that reads like a thriller but also tells a story that is horrifyingly true. Aarushi is the definitive account of a sensational crime, and the investigation and trial that followed.

General Thoughts: It was just another day in May 2008. I was in Bangalore then, sharing an apartment with a roommate, who also happened to be from Noida, when the Aarushi case made headlines. Much like everyone else in India, I was shocked, horrified and saddened by this senseless and, to be honest, very scary crime. To be brutally murdered in one's own bed with one's parents sleeping barely 8-10 feet away is scary and it does make you wonder where in this world can you really feel safe?! It was also scary because the said parents did not hear or sense anything untoward. Yes, scary is right.... whether you put yourself in Aarushi's shoes or her parents'... what happened was downright scary. 

I also followed along on the case over the years.. watching it switch focus from the dad (Rajesh) to Hemraj's friends (Krishna, Rajkumar and Vijay) and then back to the parents. At some point, I have even read Mr. Sen's weekly, or rather, as-and-when-the-hearings-happened, columns in the Mumbai Mirror. To be honest, I had to stop reading his columns because he was very obviously heavily biased in favour of the Talwars. Mr. Sen believed the Talwars to be innocent and made no secret of that in his columns. 

You may say, why would that put you off?! It's his column/ his opinion after all. Good question, it put me off because he was supposed to be "reporting" on the case and the trial. Not "opining" but "reporting". Huge difference. He was supposed to be neutral, to go where the evidence led him, to report what was going on, but instead, he wrote quasi-opinion pieces where his conviction of the Talwars' innocence shone through. I find this ethically problematic. On the one hand, we are all too quick to point out when anyone is tried in the court of public/ media-driven-public opinion.. So, how is what Mr. Sen doing any different? His belief in the Talwars' innocence is fine and it is okay if he mentions that over and over again in this book.. but during the trials.. mentioning it in his Mumbai Mirror column.. is highly problematic. So, anyway, I stopped reading his columns and looked to more neutral reportage of the trial. 

Naturally, I was curious to read this book because this is a case that I followed off-and-on over the years and it did boast of thorough research and looking through real trial/ legal/ evidence-related documents.

What I Liked: Quick List:

• The writing was competent, decent- no complaints there. 

• Clearly, this is a book into which a lot of effort, blood-sweat-and-tears have gone into and I can appreciate that. 

• This is a good book for those of us who were there at the beginning and end of this case but missed out on all the in-between stages, details and back-and-forth that happened. The book does a good job of chronologically capturing what went on as well as featuring impressions and interviews of all key players in the case. 

• Biased or not, the book did give us a very real glimpse into the lives of the Talwars.. Of what their lives were like with Aarushi and the nightmare that it descended into after her death. There are things we learn about Aarushi that were not reported by any media outlets and there are things we learn about her parents as well. 

• Most importantly, this book provides a very ground-level look at the Indian criminal justice system. It shows how scary, horrifically inadequate, non-transparent and inaccessible our legal system can sometimes be! The re-telling of events in this book sounds like an utter horror story. Like a nightmare. Like the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone. Something you wouldn't wish upon the most vile person you know. I had to put my Kindle away and look at pictures of cute dogs and cats as I read through those sections. 

• Overall, the book provides a holistic view of the entire investigation- how it evolved, how it was managed, who the other suspects could be and so on. It is very comprehensive and thorough. 

What I Didn't Like: 

• While I completely understand that it was important to report details from the trial, but that section was too long, boring and too technical for a lay person like me. The same details provided in the first section of the book are given in the trial section (obviously) and hence, this section could have been parsed down a fair amount. 

Finally, the book does not offer a solution to the actual crime.. Mr. Sen believes in the innocence of the Talwars and going by that belief, the real killer(s) is/are still out there..Not that one expects a book to solve a crime and really, who knows what really went down in that apartment, in that room on that ill-fated night? 

The bottomline is this- a 13 year old girl was brutally murdered in her own bed just a week shy of her 14th birthday.. She went to bed happy and excited because she had a new camera.. She thought she was safe..  I feel heartbroken at her death.. A life full of potential.. wait.. just a life, with possibilities and moments to be lived, was cut short..and  that is the real tragedy. 

Rest in peace, Aarushi. 

Rating: 3/5