The mystery of the clock tower deaths - Mint
Send feedbackHow did the Godrej girls die? - Mid-Day
Home / Sunday-mid-day / Article /
How did the Godrej girls die?
Updated On: 21 November, 2021 08:24 AM IST | Mumbai | Jane Borges
A business analyst’s obsession to find out the truth behind a 19th century tragedy in colonial Bombay has made her one of the most popular mystery writers in the US
An 1891 postcard circulated to build support for a petition to the Bombay High Court shows Bacha Godrej and Pilloo Kamdin, and the Rajabai Clock Tower in Fort where they died
Rarely so ever does the pursuit of a single story change the life of its pursuer. Nev March will tell you that such a chase can after all be worth the while. If anything, it will yield a book, and a successful one at that.
March, a Parsi, who was raised in Mumbai, and currently lives in New Jersey, is the author of the award-winning novel, Murder in Old Bombay: A Mystery, which released in the US last year, and is now being published by HarperCollins India. That it is finally going to be available in her home city, where a tragic double death in 1891 became the inspiration for her plot, also means that this pursuit has finally come full circle.
It was in 2016, when March had moved away from her over two-decade-long career as business analyst and was looking at working with non-profits, that she accidentally happened to read an article in Parsi Khabar about the deaths of Bacha Godrej, the 20-year-old bride of law student, Ardeshir Godrej, who would go on to found what is today known as the Godrej Group, and his 16-year-old sister, Pilloo Kamdin. On the afternoon of April 25, 1891, the two young women had gone to the University of Mumbai, and climbed its 200-odd steps to the Rajabai Clock Tower gallery, only to drop to their deaths. “It was an enormous loss. The incident continues to haunt the Parsi community,” she says over a video call, telling us how growing up, her parents would often mention the “Godrej girls” as if the incident had happened just yesterday. “When two young women die in such a horrendous manner, it leaves a gaping vacuum and many unanswered questions. That really was the trigger for me.”
