By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,
Kathmandu : After facing brickbats and reported torture threats over her controversial engagement to yesteryear’s criminal mastermind Charles Sobhraj, it is now the turn of his 20-year-old Nepali fiancée to receive unsolicited advice.
Ask your betrothed to undergo an HIV test, an agony aunt has advised Nihita Biswas, the high school student who shot to the headlines worldwide this month by becoming engaged to Sobhraj, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for murder in Kathmandu’s Central Jail.
“My dear sister Nihita,” wrote columnist Saraswati Parajuli in Nepal’s leading Kantipur daily Saturday: “It is true that our son-in-law is a well known thief. Who knows, he may even be HIV positive.
“He could infect you too. Don’t forget to make him undergo a blood test (before you get married).”
Nihita, who has been facing a barrage of public criticism for her protestation of love for a man 44 years her senior and enshrouded in dark tales about his past, has also been warned by the Nepali writer about criminals who prey on women under the guise of love.
“There are many men in our society who enact the charade of love and marriage to force women into selling their kidneys and then sell them in brothels,” the agony aunt wrote.
“There are also many people who know they are HIV positive and yet don’t hesitate to marry innocent girls and throw them into the jaws of death.”
Painting a bleak picture of the strong-willed young woman’s future, the writer also says that Nihita would have to grapple with a 36-year-old stepdaughter and no prospect of inheriting Sobhraj’s fabled millions.
“When you are 30,” the column further warns Nihita, “your beloved would be 74. In Nepal, the average age for a man is 62 years while in France, it is 77…
“Even if Sobhraj survives police charges and the hardship of prison life and lives up to the average French age, still then, he has only another 12 years left.
“At that time, you will be just 32, the ideal age to marry.”
Almost a month after the disclosure of her engagement to the imprisoned Sobhraj, Nihita’s love story continues to grip the imagination of the public here, with letters pouring in at Nepal’s leading newspapers.
However, while most are calling her gullible and shortsighted, a few are defending the romance.
American David Woodard, who is writing a book on Sobhraj and says he was a witness to the development of the love, called it “miraculous”.
“It is of greater universal and spiritual note that a genuine romance should blossom in the hearts of such a rare old bird and this intelligent, charming, talented child of local breeding,” Woodard wrote in his letter to the Himalayan Times daily.
“Especially, occurring as it does during Sobhraj’s autumn years under harrowing circumstances.”
Sobhraj, arrested during his visit to Nepal in 2003, was charged with the murder of an American tourist nearly 30 years ago and found guilty.
However, he says he was framed by police and is appealing against the life term.
As Nepal’s Supreme Court resumes hearing on the appeal Aug 10, the courtroom drama will be heightened by the presence of both Nihita, who says she will continue loving Sobhraj even if his appeal is rejected, and her mother, noted lawyer Shakuntala Thapa, who will be defending her future son-in-law.