Vinod Hindocha
HEARTBROKEN: Anni Dewani’s sister, Ami Denborg, her mother, Nilam Hindocha, brother, Anish, and father, Vinod, face a media scrum at Shrien Dewani’s trial in Cape Town in December last year down onto the metal table where she lay. Ami said she will never forget the “clunk” from the sound of Anni’s arm crashing down.
Anni’s body, frozen and embalmed, had swollen and Shrien forced the bangles which the girls had brought with them onto her hand, badly manhandling her.
Sneha pleaded with him: “Stop. You are hurting her.”
Later, as Ami was standing by Anni’s head, she asked him if it would be all right for Nilam and me to spend some time alone with her body a few minutes before the funeral, which was to take place the next morning.
Shrien said it was out of the question, telling her: “You are funeral parlour. She made a request to the manager, who said there would be no problem if Nilam and I, or indeed any other Hindocha family member, wanted to come 30 minutes before the funeral for a private farewell and some final time with Anni. I felt very hurt by this episode. I didn’t understand why Shrien was behaving this way.
That evening the pizza party took place at the Kadwa Patidar Hall in Harrow. The name “Club 1740” on the invitation, I was told, referred to room 1740 at the Renaissance Hotel, where the younger members of both families would gather to party in the days leading up to a wedding without the parents being around.
That was all about happier days and I took this to mean that Shrien wanted to evoke a similar atmosphere at his pizza party.
When we entered the hall it was nicely decorated with glowing candles. People were sitting on the floor singing bhajans and saying prayers. Many pizzas were passed around. But we Hindochas had, once again, lost our appetite.
The reason for the pizza party, Shrien explained to us, was because he and Anni had once attended a funeral where she had apparently said that if she were ever to die, she would not want a sombre funeral but instead would like people “to eat pizza and chips”.
That confused us, as Anni had never liked chips. In Swedish, chips means crisps, which Anni used to love. Shrien simply must have misunderstood her.
There was a big screen in the middle of the room set against a large wall that showed slide photographs of Anni and Shrien. This was a PowerPoint presentation Shrien had created. Pictures from her childhood through to her wedding were displayed on the screen. I could not handle seeing the wedding pictures. The slides kept running on the big screen.
There were barely any photos of my family, mostly photos of Anni and Shrien smiling together at the wedding. Seeing Anni smiling like that in her beautiful wedding dress just added to the pain and distress that I was already feeling.
I didn’t feel that it was the right time or place to see such happy pictures, and some of us broke down in tears. After all, she had been married only
FAMILY TIES: Anni Dewani, right, with her cousin Sneha Mashru IN THE DOCK: Shrien Dewani on trial at the High Court in Cape Town. He was acquitted of murdering his wife weeks earlier.
We were appalled, finding the whole thing insensitive, and were in no fit state for this celebration. But we sat smiling at the Dewanis and their friends while feeling hurt and offended. Any proper tribute would have been decently restrained.
Ashok [Anni’s uncle] whispered to me: “They can’t do this now. It is wrong.”
Two of my cousins were so outraged, they stayed in the hallway the entire time and didn’t go inside.
It was just too soon and too lively. My daughter was to be cremated the very next morning and we were distressed thinking about it. Yet here were people tucking into pizza, drinking Coca-Cola, and it just felt wrong.
Sneha told me Shrien had confided in her: “We have to make the funeral better than the wedding and make it really nice for her.”
What perverse thinking was this? I either concealed my anger or was too broken to express my feelings. Or both. As I looked around at the people chatting amicably and tucking into their pizzas, I prayed that the two hours would pass speedily.
It was irrelevant. Tomorrow was the day that truly mattered.
The next morning, around 20 members of the Hindocha family were granted permission by the funeral director to view Anni’s body at a temple in Kenton before the service, after which she was to be transported to Golders Green Crematorium.
We arrived at 9.30am. Shrien was already there. This was to be our own family farewell to Anni and Ami asked him to allow us some private time with her.
We were led through a corridor and into a very dull room with a blue carpet. Anni’s coffin was open and placed in the middle of the room. Although her face was swollen, she was nicely dressed in her red sari. It was one of Nilam’s that Anni had always wanted.
She still looked so, so beautiful. Peaceful too, as if she were sleeping. I could not stop looking at her. I tried to hold it together, but tears streamed down my face.
Ami and Anish, along with all of her cousins, had written letters to Anni and they placed them individually by her feet in the coffin. The family then stood in a circle around the casket, looking at Anni, and held hands.
My mother Ba, who was frail and in her eighties, was first to go up to the coffin. She said something over Anni’s body before blessing her.
We took it in turns to approach Anni and say our own goodbyes. It was a very solemn, quiet time. An important spiritual few moments. I can still remember the melancholy music playing in the background.
Ami was being as strong as she could, holding everything together and ushering people forward. The feeling in the room was very calm, very peaceful, and I felt as if Anni was with us. We could all feel her presence in some way. This was the first time that I had ever had a feeling like this, and it comforted me.
Nilam, Ami and I were to be the last to say goodbye to Anni and were not aware that 20 minutes had already passed when Shrien burst in screaming.
He shouted: “What are you guys doing? You are not allowed to do this.”
My son-in-law of a few weeks insulted us by accusing us of being inconsiderate. Ami asked him to leave but he refused.
Ami screamed at Preyen, who’d also entered the room, and ordered him to get Shrien out. This intimate goodbye had really been spoilt by this staggering intrusion on our private grief.
Fortunately Preyen managed
Sneha told me Shrien had confided in her: “We have to make the funeral better than the wedding and make it really nice for her” Shrien burst in screaming. He shouted: “What are you guys doing? You are not allowed to do this”
to calm down his hysterical brother and got him out. But it took five minutes of our valuable time. Ami asked everyone to leave so Nilam and I could have a few moments to ourselves with Anni.
But as the other Hindochas left, Shrien re-emerged and refused to budge. Ami asked Preyen once again to remove him. I felt a pang of sympathy for him, thinking he had become highly emotional because of the trauma of losing his wife and having to go through the ensuing funeral, so I said that he could stay.
Ami, however, had had enough and ended up arguing with Shrien. My nephew Neal had also had enough and asked in Swedish whether he should punch Shrien, but Ami managed to calm him down. All this while Anni was lying there.
After a couple of minutes, Shrien finally left. But precious moments had been lost and Nilam and I only had a few seconds with our daughter as the funeral was about to get under way.
I kissed Anni one last time, put my arm around my wife, and we left the room.
‘Anni Dewani, née Hindocha: A Father’s Story’ is published by Zebra Press (R220)